The Final Solution
by Devilita
Summary: It might be hard to imagine anything less than chilling occurring between an SS man and a Jewish prisoner in the concentration camp of Buchenwald in 1944's Germany. Hard, but not impossible. [nonmagical AU, Harry&Draco]
1. prologue

_Title:_ The Final Solution

_Author:_ **Devilita**

_Beta-Reader:_ (**Marijn**,)** BlueMonkeyz8**

_Pairing:_ Harry/Draco

_Rating:_ M (R)

_Disclaimer:_ I do not own the characters that belong to J.K. Rowling and the background information, the historcal facts, I have read from several different books and sites. The plot and ideas used are mine, though.

_Author's note:_ I have wanted to write a fic like this for ages and one night I got the idea to write down the plotline. I have tried to use information from many sources in order to avoid bias and mistakes. Do not correct my every single little mistake, please.

This chapter contains some background information for the readers. I wanted to make sure you've got some idea what I'm talking about here. This is actually quite an educating fic :)

_Warnings_ (READ THEM):

1. This story contains **violence** of various kinds but while I do not go into details worth the rating NC-17, certain scenes may be rather gruesome to the most sensitive of readers.

2. I have done a lot of historical research for this fic, namely on the Nazi Germany. If you don't like **Alternative Universe**, then this is not the story for you.

3. If the events of the **Second World War** and **concentration camps** upset you, do not read any further. This fic could never do justice to what happened during those horrible years and I advice you against reading this fic especially if the topic is personal to you.

4. This story contains **slash**, meaning homosexual relationships and themes.

5. Comments made about different ethnic groups etc **do not reflect my own thoughts**. This fic is viewed from a **Nazi's POV** (point of view) and I neither share the same ideas as they did/do nor do I accept their actions.

6. I do not know everything about the Nazi Germany. It's possible that there are some **historical errors** in the fic in spite of very careful research I've conducted. I have not visited the camp mentioned in the story myself so at times I've had to use my imagination.

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**The Final Solution**

_- _

_- Prologue – _

_- _

This story settles itself in the year 1944's Germany.

Adolf Hither had risen to power eleven years earlier, in 1933, and the National Socialist party was the state party. No other parties were allowed in the Third Reich Germany and those who did not obey the strict rules set by the government were to face grave consequences – the Gestapo, or the State Secret Police, who were lead by Heinrich Himmler and who became notorious over the years for their cruelty. Hitler's personal bodyguards, the Schutzstaffel (SS) men, also lead by Himmler, were in charge of the concentration camps and by June 1944 there were altogether over 800,000 SS men in Germany.

Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists, homosexuals, the disabled, the insane, war prisoners, Jews and other anti-social, lesser human beings were freighted to ghettos, areas where living conditions were awful and diseases spread easily, or they could be sent to concentration or extermination camps. The extermination camps' sole purpose was to kill the victims, but in concentration camps they would either get eliminated or cease to exist through what the officials called "natural wastage", whenever people died because of a workload far too heavy for their weakened bodies.

One of the most common ways to kill the victims was to send them into a gas chambers masked as a shower room. However, there were also other methods, such as mass shooting, electrocution, phenol injections, flame-throwers and hand grenades. As a result, around 6 million Jews, 5,000-15,000 homosexuals, thousands of handicapped or disabled people, half a million Gypsies, thousands of Catholic priests and Christian pastors, millions of Poles and other non-Aryans were killed during the Holocaust. Those considered being "political threats", meaning those who dared to doubt or question the Nazi ideology or the State were arrested for their 'anti-social' ideas. Sometimes it was enough for the officials to suspect someone was up to no good; no actual proof was needed.

The blood of these non-Aryan people who were not considered to be human beings at all was too filthy to get mixed with the leader race's blood. They were created to be the slave race and the blond, blue-eyed and generally good-looking Aryans were to be the leaders of humankind.

"The Führer is always right", you could hear the people say. These people lived under the impression that there was an international Jewish conspiracy and that the loss in the First World War had been the Jews' fault. Jews were behind all the misfortune that had happened to the superior German race, after all.

Through literature, art, music, radio, films and newspapers Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda and National Enlightenment who had been appointed by Hitler himself, was to brainwash people into believing in Nazist ideas and to make sure that no one in Germany could read or see anything that was damaging to the Nazi Party. Schools and youth organisations such as the Hitler Youth were supposed to make the future Nazis to believe in the ideology; sometimes the children even betrayed their own family in order to please the State.

It is not totally agreed whether Hitler had intended to exterminate Jews right from the beginning or not. Some believe it had been his intention even before his rise to power but others think it was only after several failed attempts to force the Jews to emigrate from Germany that the extermination of Jews was put into action. Hitler called this genocide "The Final Solution".

-

_A/N: Alright, class dismissed! See you on the next History lesson!_

_Reviewing is recommended._

_- Devilita._


	2. Either Us Or Them

A/N: Thank you for the encouraging comments that you lovely reviewers have given me at this stage already and a special thank you to my beta, Marijn!

Now, let the actual story begin...

* * *

-

_Chapter one: Either Us Or Them_

_-_

_; Monday 3rd of January, year 1944, Near the concentration camp of Buchenwald_

I was sitting in the backseat of a shiny Mercedes-Benz that was driving along a sandy road leading all the way to the concentration camp of Buchenwald which located on Ettersberg Hill, quite near Weimar. I was having a good-natured discussion my father, James Potter, about my new job as an SS man at the mentioned camp.

Colonel James Potter had been the influential SS-Oberführer of the concentration camp of Buchenwald ever since the year 1942 - when the former leader, Karl Koch, had been transferred to Majdanek. The car we were in at the time was almost exactly like Herr Hitler's own car, only the colour was different. My father hadn't had the nerve to buy a black 770-K Mercedes-Benz. That would not have gone unnoticed by the other officials, so instead he had bought a dark green one. Who knows, maybe by owning a car similar to his rightful Leader's he felt slightly more important himself, slightly closer to the object of his admiration.

"We are almost there, Harry", my father said, as he put down a glass that had contained Volnay. The second he let go of the delicate glass there was a bump in the road, causing the glass to fall and break into nine pieces at his feet. With a curse he kicked the shards under the seat in front of him.

"Damn those Jews! They can't even build a proper road."

* * *

_; Wednesday 9th of November, year 1938, Berlin_

_The bell had just rung and students were milling out of the school. I was a rather new student at the time; I had moved to Berlin just one month ago after living in Britain for my whole life. It had been rather strange to suddenly go to a state school after going to a boarding school for so many years but the other students had accepted me very quickly. _

_The first thing they had asked me when I entered the school grounds was if I was a Jew. They had had that reserved look on their faces, standing in a semi-circle around me, but when I explained that my dad was an important military figure they were cool. I had got the same treatment before so I wasn't too insulted. Of course, it always stings when someone mistakes you for a Jew but I guess the German students had seen that I wasn't entirely German by my upbringing. _

_Anyhow, now that I had been to Germany for just over a month I belonged to the "inner circle" of the school. My new friends kept asking what it was like in Britain and why I had come here but I would only answer that this is where I belonged, and where my parents' families had originally come from. I was waiting for Blaz and Raynard at the gates, two guys I often used to hang out with, when Louis and his gang approached me. They were alright, although Louis himself was something of a jackass at times, very often looking for someone whose arm he could twist. I wasn't worried though, he was below me in the school hierarchy. _

_The smarmy smile characteristic to Louis was in place when he opened his mouth, which was full of crooked teeth. _

"_Hey, Potter. Have you heard what's happening tonight?"_

_I looked him and thought, 'God, he needs a brace!' _

"_No, I haven't. But I've got the feeling you're going to tell me."_

_He nodded enthusiastically at that. "Yeah, almost the entire school knows about it. Well, at least those who need to know. And it's not just our school; I have the feeling that this is going to be big."_

_I was getting quite interested now. I kept quiet so I wouldn't seem too eager to hear what Louis Fleischer had to say._

"_People are gonna march into the Jewish areas and rough them up a bit, show them their places. Haven't you noticed how snooty they've become?"_

_I had to agree with him on that one. Just last week some Jewish snot-face had started a fight with a German boy from our school. I hadn't known the lad but I could remember seeing him once or twice. The Jew had lost, of course, since we had defended our fellow-schoolmate. The wuss had wept like a baby afterwards and he didn't stop flooding the street until his mother had come to lick his wounds. We didn't even beat him up that badly. He ought to be grateful we only broke one of his ribs._

"_The guys are going to meet right here at the gates of the school at ten tonight. Don't be too loud about it, either. I dunno who it was but someone told me that the one who had planned out the event has given the instruction not to make it seem too organised." It felt almost as if I had just been told a secret war plan._

_I agreed to meet the others and as Blaz and Raynard walked up to me, their coats laying over their shoulders, I said goodbye to Louis, who was still sporting that annoying grin of his. I told my friends about the event but they already knew, so once we reached Raynard's house we just decided to meet at the playground of our neighbourhood and walk to the school together that evening._

_-_

_The night turned out to be something I had not expected._

_I had not been a part of any German youth organisations for too long, since I was still a new citizen. But as far as I could tell all the boys that I could remember from the Hitler Youth meetings were there. The group of guys that I had joined when we went pistol shooting last week; the redhead whose grenade had accidentally blown up quite near him, burning his eyebrows and a bit of his hair; a few boys I remember from the time our group went marching; and one bloke called Derek with whom I had to do map reading._

_We stalked to the Jewish neighbourhood near us, just as loud as a big gang of teenage boys usually is. There were at least thirty of us, maybe even forty, I don't quite know. Some of them were carrying a bat or stick of some sort, armed almost like a bunch of hooligans. We felt incredibly almighty, and it was intoxicating, marching down the grey streets where the Jewish women carried their shopping bags and children played._

_They all stepped out of our way._

_Women were running to get their kids, pulling them aside. The passers-by hurried to their steps and those Jews who had been walking towards us suddenly turned around._

_We looked down on them, we looked at the scum that they were and all we saw was diseased filth that was difficult to wipe away just like that. We sure as hell could try, though._

_I don't know who it was, but someone had picked up a litter bin and was holding it above their head. It was dark already, the city lamps weren't on but it was clear what the person was up to._

_There was a sound of glass shattering and falling to the ground, tiny shards glistening under the dim lights all over the pavement. In a matter of seconds there was another shower of glass somewhere near, then a third one, then a fourth, and then it was happening everywhere around us and no one could keep track on how many windows had been broken. _

_People screamed and shouted. _

_Louis and his cronies were beating up a man in front of a store, hitting him with a spade that someone had stolen from the very same shop. The man was spitting out blood, some friend of Louis was jumping on the man's head. Some other Jews were trying to help the man but boys from our side were holding them back, calling them names and spitting on them. I saw Louis raising the spade and hitting down hard, making a disgusting crunching sound. More yells. Some broke into houses and threw chairs through the windows from inside._

_I saw the look in Louis's eyes. There was that manic glint there. He had just killed a man and now he was proceeding to join the others in breaking the windows and terrorising the inhabitants of the neighbourhood._

_Luckily the man who had died had been just a Jew._

"_Harry! Oy, come 'ere!" That was Blaz, waving at me as he stood in front of a store with a broken window. I ran to him and saw that he also had that strange spark in his eyes. Apparently he had received a small cut in his hand from the windowpane he had broken._

"_Look what I found", he said and put something on my palm. I took a quick look at Blaz and saw him smiling. "Swiss chocolate."_

"_Thanks", I smiled back and we followed the other boys. Some stayed behind to finish up with whatever they were doing but most of those that I knew were going onwards, breaking windows and occasionally beating someone up. _

_It surprised me how little I felt for the Jews. Sure, under normal circumstances it would have been unfair for five people to beat up one person but this was different. If we didn't destroy them then they would destroy us. Dog eat dog. _

_I broke a window, or two, or a dozen._

_I entered synagogues with the other guys and threw fist-sized stones at the colourful glass cupolas, trying to hit some certain spot there. We lit chairs and carpets and altars on fire, laughing at the panicking rabbis who tried to save whatever they could._

_I took part in breaking into a house of a Jewish family. The family had gathered upstairs in the apartment's only bedroom. They were standing in the corner, staring at us, children whimpering._

"_Please, leave us alone", the mother begged, working as a shelter for her two daughters. The father was standing in the front, holding a lamp in his hands and ready to use it as a weapon._

_Someone from our group of five spoke up. "You don't belong here, you revolting pieces of shit. You don't deserve to live but still there you stand, within our very own, German city."_

_The four other boys approached the cornered family but I stood still at the door way. Deciding to go somewhere else, I ran down the stairs but stopped as I heard the woman shriek. The floor boards creaked, there were several thumps upstairs and the children kept crying. My hand gripped at the handrail like a vice as I looked up the stairs one last time before rushing out._

_I saw that some of my classmates were still outside. Blaz was wrestling with another boy in the middle of the street, a few other boys trying to pry them apart. I ran to them, throwing punches at the other boy who still wouldn't let go. I could feel adrenaline flowing in my veins, clouding my thoughts. At first my fits hurt like a bugger but suddenly they were all numb and I could hit, hit and hit as much and as hard as I wanted without feeling anything. I pounded the boy's side, shoulder, back and head, screaming obscenities at him and ripping his hair out. I managed to get the perfect hit, right in the neck and suddenly he let go._

_The boy rolled onto his back and stared into nothingness, brown eyes unmoving._

_Blaz coughed on his hands and knees, spitting out some blood and touching his bleeding lip. "Harry –" And he got another coughing fit. I think someone brought him some water._

_The boy whose name I didn't know but whom I had killed was still staring into the skies and I could see how the surface of his eyes started to dry. I had the urge to reach out and close his eyes but I was too afraid. Something heavy shifted in my stomach. He was dead. There _was_ something scary about death._

_Blaz helped me to stand up from where I had been kneeling next to the boy, doing nothing but staring and waiting for the boy to suddenly start breathing again. He put his hand on my shoulder and I turned my head to look at him in the face. Very softly he said: "It was either him or me. You had to do it."_

_I just nodded, looking down at my feet. Blaz squeezed my shoulder one more time and putting his arm around my shoulder he have me some sort of a male-hug, I think. Without further embarrassment we left the corpse of the Jewish boy behind us and walked with the other boys who were heading further down the streets. We saw other gangs joining us, our crowd building up into a huge, violent wave that destroyed everything in its way. I tagged along, following the other boys' example and acting like a true, patriotic National Socialist was supposed to._

_-_

_When I went to the store the next day the newspapers gave the night's events the name Kristallnacht, "the Night of Broken Glass"._

Once again the glass had been wiped out of sight.

-

Finally, after a long journey, the driver pulled the car over by the gates of the concentration camp of Buchenwald. The guards opened the iron gates in front of us, letting the car enter the camp area but closed them immediately once we had passed.

My father turned to me. "Even though you are my son I cannot give you the privilege of staying permanently with me and your mother while being here. You will have to stay at the SS men's barracks for most of the time; otherwise my reputation as a believable leader might suffer. However, you may visit us as often as you will. You will start working tomorrow. Today you may get settled and wander around the camp for all you like."

By then I felt the child-like excitement bubbling inside of me. It was almost like going to an amusement park where you were allowed to go anywhere you wanted, yet I also knew for sure that the camp had not been built for entertaining people. "I am allowed to go anywhere I want?"

The slight smile on my father's face suddenly melted away. "Believe me, Harry, you don't want to see everything that takes place in here."

My father had told me what concentration camps were about when I had just hit puberty. He told me everything he was allowed to tell me, not saving me from the details at all, and I think it was the right thing for him to do, too. Despite the rather unpleasant measures that were used to get rid of the prisoners I knew that this was right.

The car stopped at the yellow building where the SS men resided. Grabbing my bag and my coat I opened the door and stepped out. "I'm going to visit you soon, father. Tell mother that I love her."

"I will", he nodded.

I closed the door and purring softly the car drove away. I turned around and looked at the building where I would be staying for a rather long time. I took a deep breath and already felt that I belonged here.

* * *

A/N: Please, review the fic. Otherwise I get the message that what I write here is totally uninteresting and all my work has been useless. 


	3. Inhuman

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* * *

_

_-_

_Chapter two: Inhuman_

_-_

_; 28th of January, year 1944, Buchenwald_

The first two weeks had been rather difficult for me.

My father had always said that my mother treated me with gentle hands and that one day she would notice that her son had not grown up to be a man, but a soft-hearted fool with no chance whatsoever of becoming something prestigious. One of those men in grey suits, working behind a wooden desk and writing unimportant documents on a typewriter. That was what my destiny would be if I didn't stand upright and take the beating like a man. The abuse wasn't physical, of course, but the things I saw at the camp… Seeing those things felt like hard blows to the gut. But I never once threw up.

Hearing stories and actually seeing the events taking place in front of your very own eyes are two very different things. When father told me about them he always managed to make them sound so usual, like going to the store to buy eight hundred grams of mincemeat.

The queues leading to the "showers" that actually were gas chambers; the crematoriums; lethal injections; heavy work loads; contagious diseases such as typhus… It was not unusual to see one of those skeleton-like bodies crumble down and get carted away, like bags half full of grain.

Then there were the souvenirs. They used to skin people and store the skin in the pathological Block 2. The tanned or tattooed skin was used to make book covers and lampshades. Some of these items were given to us, the guards, but sometimes the visitors wanted some. There were orders for human skin.

Nevertheless, when I looked at those figures I did not see them as human beings. Because they weren't. They were not human beings but enemies of the state, murderers and dirty, filthy parasites. They surely acted and looked like human beings, at least when they first arrived, but over time they looked less and less familiar, less and less like us. Their faces grew narrower, the muscles under the skin melted away and they got a haunted look in their bright, alert eyes. They seemed to be looking for a way to escape all the time, just like cornered wild animals. Their vivid eyes followed our every move and for a reason too; if they were not careful and did not take us seriously, it wasn't likely that they were going to survive for long.

I went to visit my parents a couple of times at the camp administration compound in the southern part of the camp where our barracks were also located. I couldn't go there too often, though, since I didn't want my roommates to think I was favoured. I'll have to admit that I did get some of the better jobs at the camp and I have the feeling that my mother had something to do with it.

Whatever the case was, I wasn't complaining. The food could have been better, though.

* * *

After every working day it felt so good to go back to the SS men's rooms and just fall onto my bed.

I got along with most of the guys I shared my room with.

First of all, there was Blaise. He was a bit of a spoilt snob, his father being the owner of some big cannery near Berlin. He often complained how he missed Aryan women and how he wanted to have a brothel in Buchenwald like they had in Auschwitz. I am sure he was rather accustomed to having females fawning all over him and his money, so now that he didn't have any women around him 24/7 he had to be satisfied with merely talking about them. He was a real laugh, one of those people who get along with everyone, but he could also turn very solemn when serious topics were discussed.

Everyone in the room liked teasing Ron about women, since the red-haired man had apparently been brought up in a rather conservative family where anything remotely sexual was taboo. In the beginning he had seemed rather prudish and looked at us disapprovingly when we talked about women in a less decent way, but in the end he also joined the list of blokes who borrowed the latest porn magazines that someone had brought to the camp. Men have their needs, after all.

Varick was from a middle-class family, rather normal, really. He loved beer and cars, and wrote letters to his fiancée every week several times. I don't think he would have liked to be there, working at the camp, but for one reason or another he had chosen to fulfil his duties as a member of the Third Reich Germany. After only a few months he suddenly disappeared, didn't come to work anymore and had packed his belongings while the others were getting drunk somewhere. My personal opinion is that he just couldn't take it anymore and wanted to be with his girl, who apparently had been missing him terribly. From what I could deduce from Varick's expression when he was reading her letters and gazing at his photo of a rather average-looking woman, he was absolutely aching to meet her, too. He had told us that she lived in Switzerland with her parents, so most probably that's where he had gone. I had never been emotionally attached to a girl like that, and seeing him being so miserable did not encourage me to fall for anyone quite yet, either.

Then there was Alvin, who was a rather quiet soul and took life a bit too seriously even during spare-time. I can't remember many occasions when I saw him smile. Blaise often commented how he thought that Alvin didn't have facial muscles at all left anymore.

Jerry was the gambler of the camp; he ran the bets and was addicted to card games, especially when money was involved. He was a real cardsharper and a bit like Blaise; care-free and almost always in a good mood.

Emerson was a rather peculiar person. He rarely took part in the other guys' conversations and wrote in his diary several times a day. I didn't really know much about him, only that he was married and had small children. Unlike Varick, he rarely seemed to write any letters to his wife, but once or twice he received letters that included colourful drawings apparently made by a child. At night I would sometimes see him gazing out of the window with that forlorn expression on his face. I would ask if there was something wrong but he would just say that he was tired. I didn't blame him, either; the job we all had wasn't an easy one. Some people were just weaker than others and fatherhood easily softens one's heart.

The eighth person in our room was Rolf, who we just called Beckenbauer. He read a lot of books and told us that he wanted to publish one once he was done with working at the camp. He knew just about everything about literature and I bet he was one of those bullied geeks back in the days when he was in school. I had a hard time imagining someone like him as an SS guard but apparently he wasn't too bad.

I did get to know other guards, too, but not as well as those in my room, of course. There wasn't much time to socialise with other people at the camp, since during leisure-time we usually went to our rooms to laze about, did sports, ate, or slept. There was a zoo in Buchenwald and the bears were fed right in front of the prisoners, which, of course, gave us some sadistic pleasure. At times my father took me to Berlin and I bolted into the clubs and bars to look for some female company. I always enjoyed describing my trips to Blaise afterwards. His theatrical performances of the agony he and his frustrated pecker went through were priceless.

The camp wasn't hygienic at all, and since we had to be in contact with the prisoners the diseases spread to the guards sometimes, too. One morning I woke up with a fever, but decided against going to the camp's doctor and did my job like I normally did. During the breakfast and lunch hours I tried to eat and drink something but by dinner I had started feeling nauseous and thus decided to go lie down for a while.

On my way to the barracks I passed the quarry, and a prisoner attacked me from behind, trying to strangle me. A few other guards who had been monitoring the area nearby came to my help and pried the weak man off me. There was foam coming out of his mouth, and he was shot on the spot.

The man must have been insane, diseased, or - most likely - both. I could feel the bacteria and disease going through the fibres of my uniform.

"Did he bite you?" One of the guards asked.

Inwardly I shuddered at the thought.

"Ugh, luckily not. I still think I'll go see the camp doctor, I've been feeling a bit dodgy the whole day."

So I went to the doctor and he gave me some pills for the fever, plus some special shampoo and powder. I thanked him and left, heading for the barracks once again, this time making it without any incidents. I just wanted to rest and, feeling sleepy, pushed the door of our room ajar.

What I saw in the room made my eyes almost bulge out of their sockets.

The crimson curtains were slightly drawn and there was a narrow stream of light going across the floor, until it reached the opposite wall and crawled up to the ceiling. There were some dust particles floating in the air that glimmered when they hit the sunlight. Most of the room looked slightly red due to the sun's rays that had been filtered by the curtains. There was a musky odour in the warm room and only ragged breathing broke the silence.

Emerson was lying on his back on his bed, trousers pulled down his hips and holding a picture of someone in his hand while the other pumped his erect penis. His thin lips were slightly parted and his fingers were clutching the photo, which he was staring through half-lid eyes with dilated pupils. He gritted his teeth and sped up, arm muscles clenching and sweat glistening above his upper lip.

I had never actually seen anyone jerking off before. It felt like there was a very hot ball burning in my stomach and I got the sudden urge to go to and splash some cold water on my face. With strange fascination mixed with the urge to run off and never mention this to anyone I still continued watching the other man's activities.

Arching his spine, he let out a satisfied sigh and whispering the name "Franz", he came all over his hand. After relaxing for a few seconds Emerson laid the picture he had been holding onto his bed.

It was as if something hard had hit me in the forehead. The picture was of another man.

I was shocked beyond imagination, the whole incident made my stomach twist and turn. With a disgusted look on my face I wrenched the door open and Emerson's head shot up, eyes suddenly very focused and wide. His hand, which was now cleaning his crotch with a handkerchief had stopped in mid-motion and he quickly stammered,

"H-Harry, it's not what it looks like –"

The fireball inside me exploded.

"Then what the hell is it? A misunderstanding? Gods, man! I mean, what the fuck?" I screamed and closed the door so that everyone in the hall wouldn't hear us.

He was suddenly in an awful hurry to cover himself, obviously having realised his state of undress. "I – I don't - Harry, please, don't tell anyone…"

I huffed, "And why should I not? You're a flaming homosexual! We imprison them! They're supposed to be locked up!"

"But I have children and a wife! I have done my duty, this was just an experiment. Harry, I am begging you, don't tell anyone about this! It means nothing, I am a father and my sons need me! "

"SHUT UP!"

He snapped his mouth shut in an instant and swallowed while I stared at him down my nose.

"A fucking youth corruptor… That's what you are…"

"It isn't contagious!"

"I ought to tell them about you so your sons will be saved. It would be much better than having a queer father."

"Harry! I have never done anything to you or the others! I swear this was the first time I ever thought of a man like that!"

I narrowed my eyes at him. "How can I believe you? You are corrupted, rotten. You might lie."

"I love my children! They mean the world to me. You _know_ that! I miss them more than anything and just want to go home to my family."

It was so easy to look at the Jews and other prisoners and kill them off without a trace of emotions, but it was a different thing to send someone you considered your friend to death. Emerson's eyes shone with unshed tears; he was on his knees in front of me with the flies of his trousers still open.

"Please, Harry. You can have anything you want, I'll pay anything if you spare me…"

"Quit whimpering, it's pathetic." I didn't know it was possible but I was getting even angrier.

With a sharp intake of breath he bit his lip and just stared up at me from the floor.

These was a small pause until I continued, "I won't say anything about this…"

Tears started running down the other man's flushed cheeks. His hands were shaking violently. "Oh, thank you, thank you, Harry, thank you so –"

"Just make sure I won't catch you again. Otherwise I will tell my father about this and you die, too."

Emerson nodded furiously. "Yes, yes, of course."

I walked to my bed, suddenly very conscious of Emerson's stare and turned to glare angrily at him. "And don't lay your eyes on me. If you do, I will personally make sure that my next notebook's covers are made of your skin."

With a frown he turned away and started buttoning his trousers. I flopped down on my bed and stared up at the ceiling on my back, arms folded under my head. I drifted off to very strange dreams that night, not waking up until the next morning, fever gone. I hadn't even needed to take any of those pills the doctor gave me.

The next day I was told to execute two homosexual prisoners, and I enjoyed it more than any extermination I had conducted before. A friend of mine made a necklace of their teeth and that evening I placed a neatly wrapped gift with a pink bow on top of it under Emerson's pillow.

* * *

_; 15th of May, year 1944, Buchenwald_

There were new prisoners arriving that day, which, of course, was nothing out of the ordinary. I was one of the guards making sure that no one caused any trouble and I was talking with another guard as we directed the prisoners into the camp area to be registered and prepared. In the flow of people, the smell of sweat and filth was hovering everywhere and I wanted to make some distance between the crowd and myself. If a prisoner came too close we had the permission to shoot them.

There was a woman crying against another woman's shoulder, sobbing her heart out and talking in a language that I didn't understand. It sounded East-European. Buchenwald used to be a camp only for males but now they brought women here, too.

Turning to look somewhere else I saw how Jerry was telling a middle-aged man with a walking stick to get a move on.

Countless people, young women and young men of different origins sauntered past me. They were all faceless and nameless, mere numbers. The new ones always looked healthier than those who had been inside the camp for a longer time, but it was sure that quite soon these people were going to become like them. Food was scarce amongst the prisoners, but that didn't really matter, since eventually they would all have to die anyway and someone else, a stronger newcomer would arrive and finish the weakling's work.

Two men were helping an injured young woman to walk, because it looked like she was about to pass out any second.

A bit further away a man had somehow managed to break his shinbone and was screaming like a madman. I went over and broke his neck, given that he was obviously not going to be of any use at the camp.

Jerry was repeating his commands for the next group, and I observed the crowd a bit more. It felt like I had seen all this before, even though most of the people had never been to a concentration camp. All the faces looked the same and they were like cattle being directed to the butcher. You could notice how some individuals had obviously been transferred to Buchenwald from another camp, since their cheeks were more sunken than the others' and their bones were jutting out. The weakest of the lot would get executed the same day, probably.

I turned to look at the lagging end and immediately laid my eyes on a blond young man with very startling clear grey eyes. He was looking at the gates that read "Each To His Own", and I felt something drop in my stomach.

For a very brief moment he looked at me. The intensity of his eyes made my chest tighten, but I could not look away. His cheeks were healthy, rosy pink from the chilly morning air, and although his hair was damp and streaked with grime because of the slight morning mist, he looked absolutely… exceptional.

A surge of anger flooded my mind. Individuals like that were the worst kind; they looked innocent, Aryan and deceitfully proper but in reality they were the ones who tricked the respectful citizens the most. The women seduced men, the children were thieves and the men rapists and murderers. They managed to blend into the society and slowly consume it from the inside.

Behind those grey eyes whirled the most treacherous thoughts and those effeminate hands were constantly ready to choke you to death. I narrowed my eyes as I tried to look at him more closely, expecting to see a flash of something, a proof of the man's origin. There was nothing, though.

He turned to look away and continued walking through the gates, passing the Bunker.

I could do nothing but stare at the back of his head. It could be that he was not even supposed to be here. People made mistakes, maybe he had been sent here accidentally. I followed him with my gaze and not wanting to lose the sight of him, I hurried my steps and kept my eyes locked on him.

Not having noticed an exhausted woman on the ground, I tripped over.

Cursing, I stood up.

"You alright there, Harry?" Jerry asked as he closed the gates behind us.

Hurriedly dusting myself off I mumbled, "Yeah, yeah, thanks", and tried to find the blond that had caught my eye so unexpectedly.

He was gone already, though, and, feeling disappointed, I went to continue my duties.

* * *

A/N: Thank you, Marijn, for beta-reading the chapter again! My story would be awful without your help with the grammar!

Then, thank you, you lovely reviewers. I know that the topic is very touchy and I have hesitated writing this. I didn't want to make anyone feel bad and I didn't want to receive lots of comments on how unrealistic the story is. It is only a story after all, although it is based on historical facts. Since there weren't that many reviews I can just as well answer to some of them.

_Spideria:_ You got what you wanted :) I really like your fic called 'chasing the forbidden', btw.

_yar:_ Thank you for reviewing and pointing out the mistakes, although if you check the first chapter again you'll see that the date of the night of the broken glass was correct. And that one term… well I changed it from 'priest' to 'rabbi'.

Reviews are very welcome, so please, comment!

**-Devilita.**


	4. Crumbs of Truth

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* * *

_

_-_

_Chapter three: Crumbs of Truth_

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_;17th of May, year 1944, Buchenwald_

The day had been absolutely beautiful outside the camp. I had taken a short walk in the woods near-by and enjoyed myself immensely. No wonder the prisoners' skin started looking so grey and fragile, thin as paper, when they didn't get to hear the birds singing high up in the oak trees. That one hour I had spent in the forest, wandering around, had lifted up my spirits enormously, giving me new energy to do my job. The zoo they had there in Buchenwald could only be interesting for so long, but I never got tired of the forest. When I tilted my head back to look at the tops of the sighing trees, I occasionally got blinded by the sunlight filtering through the leaves being moved by the wind. Pure blue sky opened up above me, beyond those trees, and at moments like that I felt like my life couldn't have been any better.

On my way back to the camp, my mood didn't exactly worsen but the unreasonably content feeling I had had decreased gradually as the distance between me and the gate doors grew shorter.

That day I was assigned to supervise the building site for a new Block for political prisoners, many of the future residents probably Soviets. The prisoners that had been brought there to build the wooden house had been working for six hours already as my shift started, and not even ten minutes had passed when the first signs of trouble appeared. That rather flattened my good mood.

Two prisoners had gotten into a fight in the middle of the working day, and another guard, Garin was shouting for me to come help him to pry the two prisoners apart. Taking my partner Tab with me we ran to Garin and I took hold of the taller prisoner while Tab pinned the smaller one to the ground. Both of them were now looking at us with clear, unmasked fear written across their faces.

Garin walked up to the bigger prisoner and, narrowing his eyes, he hissed dangerously, "Fights are not tolerated during working hours, you idiots! I could get you two punished for this if I wanted to, but since I am the one in charge of the site for the next four hours, I want no trouble from ANY of the workers here during that time, understood?" He turned to look at the other prisoner on the ground down his nose. "And I tell you, if you do something like this again, the punishment you get from me will be longer…" he emphasized the word 'longer', "…and more painful than either of you can imagine."

Garin was a tough guy, very much like that one Yugoslavian executor that I had talked with last week.

He had nerves like iron, showed no pity and hadn't softened at all even though he'd just had his first child, a baby girl, with a lady living in the nearest town.

Both of the prisoners continued their work but two hours into my shift the smaller one who had been carrying planks of wood stopped in his tracks, collapsed, and didn't get back up. Garin told me to go shoot him, and I did.

* * *

I was very pleased to hear Tab tell me a few hours later that our shift had ended. The sun that had been beating down on us from the cloudless sky the whole day had almost given me a heatstroke, and I was in a desperate need of a shower.

As the blissfully refreshing water poured on me I couldn't stop the sigh from escaping my lips. I even used the special shampoo the doctor had given me earlier to rid me of all the filth that the prisoners seemed to spread around and bathe in.

Twisting the tap closed, I followed the trickles of water with my eyes as they travelled across my skin, down my legs to the white tile floor and into the drain. I grabbed a towel and dried myself, my black hair still dripping water onto my shoulders and chest. Feeling very pleased with the fact that I was clean and about to go have a filling meal I stepped out of the stall and got dressed in no particular hurry, enjoying the sweet smell of soap on my skin.

The food was what it always has been, below mediocre, but that was kind of understandable since the Second World War was still raging on. Besides, when looking at the portions that the prisoners received, all I could do was thank some higher force for making me Aryan.

* * *

After dinner I decided to head back towards the SS barracks to have a lie down for half an hour before my next two-hour-long shift started; meals always made me feel a bit tranquil. While dragging my feet towards my destination, I munched on a piece of white bread with a bit of butter and a thick slice of cheese on top of it, fully aware of the hungry prisoners who were eating my bread with their eyes. Sometimes we would throw bits of bread into puddles of mud or potatoes into the flames at some working sites just for the hell of it, only to watch as prisoners charged for the leftovers and occasionally burned themselves so severely that they had to be relieved of their pains.

I was very close to the SS men's area already which meant that this was my last chance to have a bit of fun with the prisoners. I threw half of my bread amongst the thickest part of the crowd and in a blink of an eye dozens of skinny arms tried to reach for it, desperately. They bit each other, clawed, kicked and pushed one another like animals in order to get even the tiniest crumb of decent food. Although it was quite likely that the piece of bread had disappeared into someone's hungry mouth a long time ago already, the crowd was still looking for it hopelessly. The expressions on their faces, the disbelief that reflected off them… I didn't even try to hold back the chuckle that bubbled in my chest.

Something in the corner of my eye apparently caught my attention and I turned my gaze away from the bustling crowd.

That was when I saw Him again.

He was not fighting in the middle of the crowd nor did he look like he had even tried to get the bread. He was just standing there in the side, leaning against the building with his arms crossed. Silently he observed me from under his blond fringe, slightly hunched up, with silver eyes boring into me and every now and then flicking to the other half of the bread I was holding in my hands.

Making sure that the other prisoners weren't watching, I gestured for him to follow me behind the corner.

Limping slightly, he did as I told him to and having rounded the corner, he immediately supported himself by the wall of the building, looking up at me.

I looked back. I remembered how his hair had reflected the sunlight in such a striking way when he had first entered the camp and I recalled thinking how it had looked so surreal in the middle of grey, black, brown and all the shades of dirt. Now, though, his hair had lost quite a bit of its unearthly radiation, being hidden under layers and layers of grime although I was sure that if he had a proper shower, the locks would shine as stunningly as before coming to Buchenwald.

What hadn't lost their shine were his eyes. They were still as bright and expressive as I remembered them despite having been half-hidden behind those dim blond strands of hair.

It was quite a beautiful sight. Shame he was a prisoner. And a man.

"Hey", I said.

He didn't answer back, but I saw him purse his lips.

"Do you speak my language?" I asked and looked at him, genuinely wanting to know and hear him speak.

He cleared his throat. "Yes, I do."

I smiled. It would be almost criminal to let his hair lose its shine. I handed him the piece of bread I was holding, with butter and cheese and all. In an instant his hand closed around it, eyes wild and not quite understanding that he was actually holding food, _real food_, in his fist. Snapping his head up again, he looked at me with wide eyes. The skinny man in front of me didn't seem to dare satisfy his hunger without my permission. "Go on and eat it."

He needed to further persuasion and, feeling a something hot swell in my chest, I watched as he greedily stuffed the bread into his mouth with an expression that spoke more than a thousand words. It would have been easy for him to choke on that small piece of white bread.

After finishing up, he carefully licked his fingers. "Thank you." His skin was covered with soot and small scratches, and I grimaced at the thought of how hygienic it was to lick those fingers that probably hadn't been washed the whole day.

"You're welcome." I wasn't usually this friendly with the prisoners, not at all. "Who are you?"

Still licking his fingers and lips slightly, he answered, "1496302." He wiped his fingers against the striped prisoner's outfit. "I'm 1496302."

I frowned at his answer. "Your real name."

His silver eyes had slight specks of blue in them, I noticed. His eyes glinted behind the obstructing fringe, and he murmured, "Before coming here I was Draco. Draco Malfoy."

What an unusual name for an unusual individual.

* * *

A/N: I am very sorry for not updating sooner but at least you got a bit of Draco again, eh? Please, comment, I so love receiving feedback from you readers.

Some of you asked if the Nazis truly skinned people at the concentration camps and the answer is yes, they did, and they made lots of items out of tanned skin. I'm sure you would find pictures of those items by googling. By the way, if you want to have a look at Buchenwald, go visit my web site where I have collected some picturesfrom Buchenwald.

Yours,

_Devilita._


	5. Bending the Rules

_A/N: Thank you for the reviewers again and my lovely beta reader, Marijn!__

* * *

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_Chapter four: Bending the Rules_

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_;26th of May, 1944, Buchenwald_

I could say that everything went on normally after the last encounter with the blond but then I would also be lying through my teeth. I often found myself looking for him as I went to work with the prisoners. It was unconscious, I didn't do it on purpose, and, too often, I caught myself looking around, trying to find a blond head amongst the working Jews and other scum. That made me incredibly angry with myself although my behaviour was completely understandable.

It's not our job to get into too much contact with the prisoners. They spread diseases and some of them are extremely cunning, trying to manipulate us. It was not my fault I was having these thoughts.

'_That charlatan is doing this on purpose. He knows _exactly_ what he's doing; this is what they warned us about. God, I can't believe I let him affect me like this!'_

'_Affect you how?'_ An amused voice at the back of my head sneered. Internally, I tried to glare it away.

As I lay in my bed, hands cushioning my head, I swallowed and stared at the bottom of the bed above mine, the bed in which Blaise was having a nap. As if the answers were carved into the dark wood of the bunk bed, I tried to sort myself out and leaf through the pictures of Draco Malfoy that I had saved in my memory.

Afterwards, when I thought about those grey eyes, deep as my hatred towards Jews, the eyes started reflecting something I hadn't noticed before. The sparkling irises got a tint of deception in them, a small spark speaking of menacing thoughts and I saw how sinful suggestions swirled in the intense gaze he was giving me. I knew that there was a name for a look like that, but I couldn't remember what it was, nor did I truly want to, because that would have meant that I understood him and what he was presenting to me. Knowing that I did not understand made me pure.

Still, that look made something aggressive and primitive growl inside of me and bare its teeth. I wanted to shred him into tiny pieces, watch as the tissue ripped apart in front of my eyes, feel the stickiness of his blood between my fingers and I wanted to hear him cry, scream and beg for me to stop.

-

That night I dreamed of seeing Draco get killed by a group of SS men. As someone carved the Swastika on his stomach with a knife and as someone broke his thin fingers one by one like twigs, he screamed for me to help him. Eventually his screams faded into faint pleas with no emotion behind them anymore.

'_Harry… Please, come and help m-" His_ throat was slit open.

The voice died away as his eyes fluttered closed. There was a pool of blood around him and his blond hair turned black. I had done nothing to stop the slaughtering. Draco's body started to cool down and his lips were blue.

Suddenly, I woke up with a start, remembering nothing of the dream.

* * *

_;5th of June, 1944, Buchenwald_

After being shaken awake by Ron, who was sitting next to me on my bed and after finding my glasses I instantly noticed that something was off.

The whole room was very quiet, even though all of my comrades were there. I could sense the unusual atmosphere; I could feel that something must have happened. From the looks of the very silent, expressionless roommates of mine the reason behind such a radical shift in the normal atmosphere had to be something horrible. I felt an enormous sense of foreboding. On his bed, Jerry was holding his head in his hands.

"What's going on, Ron?"

Ron turned to look at me with sad eyes, his lips were pale. I could see sombre lines in the corners of his mouth. "Alvin is dead."

Alvin was… dead?

A lump formed my throat and I gasped, "What?"

"He's dead, Harry. Died last night."

I just couldn't believe it. My roommate was dead. I turned to look at his untouched bed and it felt like a ghost had touched my neck with its cold fingers. "How did it happen?"

Blaise stood up from where he had been leaning against a wooden desk. "They found him dead this morning in Block 34."

"So the prisoners did it?"

Blaise's voice grew grimmer, if possible. "I think it was Alvin himself rather than the prisoners…"

There was a shocked silence in the room.

"Y-You mean… He went there on purpose? Unarmed?" Jerry stammered, looking up.

Blaise nodded solemnly. "In the middle of the night I saw him get up and make his bed."

Everyone in the room was listening.

"I asked if he was going somewhere but he didn't give me an answer in return." Blaise hung his head, voice wavering, and I heard him swallow. "Had I know that he – That he'd actually –"

"No", I interrupted him quickly.

I saw Blaise jump a bit.

"You mustn't blame yourself for this. None of this is your fault, there's nothing you could have done. This would have happened eventually anyways." People were nodding in agreement.

"That's right, Blaise, Harry's right. You can't be everywhere to watch over everybody." I was grateful for Emerson's support.

Blaise went back to leaning against the desk. "He never looked like someone who was really strong enough for this job, though. I remember how we all agreed he was too soft. We should have made him –"

"Blaise! Just listen to yourself!" I exclaimed. "You didn't make him come here. You didn't force him to c- to do what he did. It was him and only him."

"Life is about the survival of the fittest, after all", someone pointed out from the other end of the room.

The others went out to go to breakfast, although I was sure they weren't hungry at all.

I walked up to Blaise and went to sit next to him on the desk.

"I know it's not my fault, Harry. It still doesn't change the fact that he killed himself and might still be here, at this very fucking moment, had I been bothered to force an answer out of him. I'm very good at noticing if someone is lying, you know, I could have made it more difficult for him to leave the room."

It was very difficult to say anything in situations like this. Blaise had obviously taken Alvin's suicide very heavily, and at moments like this I almost wished I was a woman. They always managed to find the right words when someone was feeling down and having a guilt trip. I patted Blaise in the back and he gave me a brief smile that contained no real happiness.

"There is probably going to be a small memorial event held for Alvin later this evening. We might be able to say a few words there, I dunno. I haven't been here long enough to find out if there is such a habit here in Buchenwald."

The knuckles of Blaise's fists turned white as he squeezed the edge of the desk. "There isn't going to be any memorial shit for Alvin. They've never had those here. Not once", he spat out, boring holes into the wooden plank floor with his eyes.

"We could still have one of our own here in our room…"

Blaise's head snapped up to look at me with wide eyes.

"… completely non-official, of course. Just for those in our room."

Blaise looked at me for a moment, really _looking_ at me like he'd never seen me before. His eyes were bright and very blue.

"Yes", he nodded. "Yes, that would be brilliant."

_

* * *

;8th of June, 1944, Buchenwald_

I was absolutely flabbergasted when I read the day's newspaper. It said that on the 6th of June the Allied forces had landed in the Second Front, Normandy, and although something like that had been in the air for quite some time, it was still a surprise. From what I'd heard from other guards, the troops were heading towards Cologne, across the Rhine, perhaps they were there already! I had no idea what to think of it, the situation was becoming increasingly worrying.

The days felt longer somehow and one could feel the tension in the air. A couple of the other guards had even came up to me to ask just 'how English I was'. I had not expected to get a reaction like that from my colleagues, not at all, and for a few seconds I had been speechless.

'_I am as German as you are! I believe in the same things and both of my parents are German, just like your parents are.'_

_The reserved look melted from their faces. 'Oh, sorry, we just had to make sure, you know.'_

The food was even more terrible than usual. Either the fish delivery had taken longer than intended or they had mixed our food with that of the prisoners'. As I walked past the prisoners' food queue, however, I noticed my mistake as I saw the lumpy, grey mass on the plate, accompanied by one or two dry pieces of some vegetable. The sight of it made me want to dart to my chocolate stash that I kept under my bed. As much as I had wanted to do just that, I had to do my duties and meet my father in ten minutes time at his office.

'_And don't be late, Harry. 12 o'clock, sharp.'_

Although my mum was desperately and obviously trying to recreate a bond of sorts between my father and me, it was not working at all. The day I had come to Germany, leaving England behind, I had realised that things would not be the same between us. I hated myself for wanting his acceptance and recognition, but I felt that I owed him. At the same time, though, he owed me so much more for not being there for me during those important years of my life that I had spent in England, away from him and locked in a private school that was as cold and merciless as the Siberian winter.

_

* * *

;10th of June, 1944, Buchenwald_

The newspaper headlines that had evoked so many emotions a couple of days before had not been forgotten, but the anxiety had most certainly subsided. Life at the camp went on normally, although the barracks containing prisoners too sick to work and too far-gone to get medical attention had started to get crowded. Most of the inmates there were probable to get exterminated in a matter of a few days.

Indeed, that was definitely one of those days when a big percentage of the prisoners in Buchenwald were taken into gas chambers to 'take a shower'. The workloads were heavier than usual and spontaneous and loosely justified executions were more common. The day was a very hot one, there was no wind and some parts of the camp reeked of rotten flesh and who knows what.

I was assigned to lead prisoners into the chambers that day, which was a small jackpot for me since this meant that I got to spend a good five hours in the shade.

-

I had been wrong. By the time I got to the gas chambers the sun had already moved so that it was roasting everyone directly from above. Silently I cursed and opened the top-most button of my shirt.

The first queue of twenty political Jewish prisoners that was led to the gas chambers built in the cellar of the high, firm building that I was leaning against was a rather tiring sight. Some of the prisoners clearly knew what was about to happen, while others remained gloriously oblivious. As I pushed the slower ones inside they often tumbled to the ground and one even died there in the doorway. Out of exhaustion, disease, injury or heat stroke, I don't know and basically, I didn't really give a damn. The body was quickly carted off somewhere.

The next group of walking skeletons was obviously from the barracks where no one lived for longer than ten days. This lot was falling apart in front of my eyes, and while they weren't leprous, quite a few were in the process of losing some part of their anatomy.

Queue after queue, the chambers started getting full. Luckily it wasn't my job to take the bodies outside and get rid of them. The last group that Emerson was urging forwards was a sight that I had waited for. It was my ticket for a 30-minute-long break before the next groups were to be taken in.

The grey faces and haunted eyes that I got to see as the prisoners walked past me spoke of pain and weakness, which made my job even easier since what I was doing was almost like euthanasia. After locking the doors and letting some gas in the prisoners would start screaming like animals and their voices would echo the in the chambers for quite some time until the silence would fall. It was comforting to know that after such hideous cries the Third Reich would be a slightly more peaceful and safe place to live in.

Those musings of mine were severely interrupted, however, once the lagging end of the last queue arrived. What I saw made my blood run cold, and my throat became suddenly very tight.

'_He - No, not him.'_

The grey eyes were void of any emotion and defeat shone through the skinny form of the blond prisoner. Draco Malfoy was the last of the lot and a guard I didn't know was shoving him forwards every now and then.

"Get going! Quickly, quickly!"

He was terrible to look at. The healthy flush that I had seen on his cheeks the day he had arrived was gone and replaced with a white, ill hue and his high cheekbones were terribly pronounced on his once-gorgeous face.

It hurt to look at him. I know I shouldn't have paid him any attention in the first place, I shouldn't have made any of it personal, but it had just happened. I should probably have blamed him, he was the impure one, after all, but at the time the logical part of me didn't know what to think, say, or do. And so I just responded the way my instincts told me to.

I grabbed Draco by the arm and pulled him aside.

"Harry, what –"

"Shut up, Emerson, if you know what is good for you."

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_A/N: If you want more, review, please. I'm getting a bit frustrated._

_**-Devilita.**_


	6. Exploitation

_A/N: First of all, THANK YOU for all the lovely reviews I got for the last chapter! They truly motivated me to continue writing._

_Some have wondered why it took me so long to update. My original beta reader disappeared mysteriously after I'd sent them this chapter. I was patient and only after two months I started looking for a new beta reader. So, _**BlueMonkeyz8** _deserves a huge thank you for doing a fastastic job!_

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_Chapter five: Exploitation_

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Knowing that Emerson would not say a word and trusting that the other guards wouldn't dare to report the SS-Oberführer's son, I dragged the gasping, stumbling man all the way to a tool shed by a building site and slammed the door shut behind us. Through the small cracks between planks, there were bright beams of light coming in. The wooden shed had no windows at all and the small light bulb hanging from the ceiling was broken.

The man in front of me was shaking with dread and anticipation, but nevertheless he tried to maintain a defiant posture. I was glad to see how life was back in his eyes, vibrant and hot.

His voice was tight and he tried to mask his obvious fear as he breathed out quickly, "If you want to kill me –"

"- I would have done it already."

Gaping at me with bloodshot eyes, the blond man backed up against the wall. "Then what –"

"I don't know."

He frowned in confusion and tried to get his breathing under control.

"I – I really don't know," I said, more to myself than him. It felt as if the gravity of the situation had just hit me. Just what _was_ I doing?

The other man, Draco Malfoy, coughed as dust apparently got into his lungs. He tried to stifle the sound, but it jerked me out of my own thoughts and I turned to look at him again, to look at the man that had made my life quite a bit more complicated than what I had wished for.

"Just what are you?" I snapped in frustrated irritation.

"I, er, what do you mean?"

Maybe I should not have said it out loud.

"Shit."

I ran my fingers through my hair, not knowing what to do next. There was no one to give me guidelines as to how to handle this perplexing turn of events that I had brought upon myself.

"Alright, listen to me. You go back to… wherever and keep your mouth shut about this, understand? This didn't happen. You weren't in that queue. Someone made a mistake, mixed you up with someone else. This never happened!"

At some point my voice had risen and he was now nodding frantically. "Yes, yes, right, never happened. Um…"

There were beads of sweat forming above my upper lip and on my forehead. Despite being in the shade, the shed was hot and the air was stuffy. "Good, good, brilliant. Okay, so –" But I didn't know how to continue.

With a strangely small voice, the blond said tentatively, "I guess I need to thank you for what you did. So, thank you."

"Don't!" I barked, "Don't you dare to thank me, you little fucker! You are – You are -!"

"People like you put me here. I don't owe you a thing. But I do thank you for this, no matter how ashamed I feel for doing that."

"Why are you here?" I gasped out. Right after saying those words my eyes darted to the sign attached to his striped shirt that indicated his reason for being captured. There was a yellow equilateral triangle on the shirt, with another pink triangle positioned on top of it so that the two triangles formed a star. My breath got caught in my throat and my stomach churned.

"For being born the way I was and for doing what felt natural to me," he said calmly.

My head was pounding; it felt like something nasty had slid down my throat. "Natural? Just how natural could it be when two men are – are doing those disgraceful and lecherous things to each other? Like animals, like dirty, disgusting primitive animals!"

He kept silent but I went on. "There is nothing natural about those things! Fuck, I should have let you get gassed! What the fuck was I _thinking_, you're no different from the other freaks of nature here! Fuck!"

Draco Malfoy was apparently trying to blend into the wall, into the shadows in the corner. "You don't know before you try."

At that, my eyes blazed and cold fury rose within me.

"Get out."

The man started moving towards the door.

"GET OUT!"

Rushing out of the door in a blink of an eye, the blond man disappeared and I was left standing alone in the middle of a dark, dusty tool shed. Only my own shallow breathing was there to break the suffocating silence.

* * *

_;16th of June, 1944, a forest close to Buchenwald_

It was a Saturday night and my roommates and I, plus the men from the room next to ours, were out drinking by the forest close-by. Someone before us had brought a wooden table and a few benches with them under a big oak and that was where we were laughing, joking, and drowning bottles and bottles of beer down our throats. The place was clearly in rather frequent use since the grass around the table was brown and dead.

Some of us were pissed out of our faces. Jerry, who had lost way too much money in card games, had stumbled back to the barracks an hour earlier, muttering something about a rabbit and ergophobia. Blaise was entertaining everyone willing to listen with his elaborate stories and imitations as the beer he was attempting to drink at the same time dribbled down his chin and onto his shirt. Ron's cheeks were almost as red as his hair and he giggled at nothing and everything, although later on he vehemently denied ever having done such a thing. Another funny case was Beckenbauer, of course, who had probably never been that drunk before in his life. Blaise repeatedly called him a mummy's darling and made lewd comparisons between his libido and his ability to hold his alcohol.

Our new roommate, who slept in Alvin's former bunk, was there with us as well. His name was Ritter, and had quite a lot in common with Blaise. He too was very talkative and appreciated the kind of humour that elderly people often frowned upon, but unlike Blaise, Ritter wasn't an upper-class snob, but instead could outsmart most of us any day. He was clearly an extremely intelligent and witty young man who had a great, academic career ahead of him. I was sure we would all hear more of him sometime in the future after Buchenwald.

"Oi! Emerson! Wha' are you moping about over there?"

"Leave him be, he's feeling sick, Blaise."

"Or then he's just not a happy drunk, eh, how is it Emerson?" Blaise gave Emerson a companionate pat in the back, making Emerson retch then and there as he was crouching down by a bush. "Ah. Not feeling very good then, no."

"Just fine and dandy," Emerson bit back and lowered his head back down.

"Oh… Hell…," Merrill moaned, and Emerson continued emptying the contents of his stomach for a good while, standing on his wobbly knees.

Not wanting to look at that particular scene, I turned to my own beer and took a big gulp. Slightly too big, perhaps, since it resulted in me sputtering some of it out of my mouth and I could feel it burn in my nose a bit as well.

"Easy there, Harry," Ron patted me in the back. "There's no hurry."

I coughed a bitter thanks and saw Blaise coming back to the table, sitting opposite to me.

"D'you think there's any possibility of going to the town today? I'd really want some pussy right now."

Some other guys were murmuring in agreement, wide grins spreading across their faces.

"Hey, Harry, you think you could borrow Mr. Potter's Mercedes?"

"No way, Blaise!" I hurried to exclaim, "Leave me out of this! Your prick, your problem."

"Aww, but Harry, look at me!"

Idid and saw nothing out of ordinary about Blaise. This obviously showed onmy face and Blaise started flailing his arms exasperatedly. "I'm a man with needs!"

"A man with some severe addictions, I'd say," Ron commented dryly. "You should have kept your mouth shut about Beckenbauer's sex life," he stated. "Or the lack of it. You're both extreme cases."

"Pha! You're just a bunch of dickless wussies, that's what you are." Having said that, Blaise charged for his next beer and let the issue be. Perhaps he even forgot about it. He most certainly was not going to remember a big part of the night the next morning.

"I'm going to follow Jerry's suit and go to sleep this off. Oh, gods," Emerson groaned and held his abdomen. "Why I join you every time, I'll never know."

"It's because you love us!" Blaise declared loudly as Emerson started staggering towards the camp.

Not getting any response, Blaise scowled for a second or two and started handing the others new bottles of beer.

"Hey, I'm not finished with my last one, either!"

"Stuff it, Ron, and be a man. You've been sipping at that bottle for the whole evening."

"No, this is actually my –"

"Blaah! Save your Irish eps – esclanations and hand me my cigarettes, would you?"

"Here you go," Ron sighed. "And I'm not Irish."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Blaise bent over the table but lost his balance, toppling over onto the table and spilling his drink across the surface. In the process, he also hit his nose against its surface so that it started to bleed.

All I could do was watch Blaise with pity. Maybe he still blamed himself for Alvin's suicide, I wasn't sure.

"Alright, Blaise, you've had enough. It seems that you're not the only one who needs to have a lie down, a long, sobering lie down."

"Harry, you're not dunk. Drunk." Ritter was pulling Blaise up, handing him a handkerchief and helping him tip his head so that it would stop bleeding.

As a matter of fact, I was quite inebriated, but unlike Blaise, I didn't show it off with flamboyant gestures or flush bright red like Ron. My vision was slightly blurry and movements felt soft and steps light, which was a clear indication to my state of intoxication. "Let's get you to your bed, ok? You're making a fool out of yourself and you are going to regret this in the morning."

"Harry! When did you become such a spoilsport? First you deny me… something that I must have thought was of great importance and now this?"

"Yes, Blaise, I'm a bad person. Now, up you go."

"Have fun dealing with that old sailor, Harry!" Ron yelled as I started dragging Blaise down the path that led to a sandy road a bit further away. Despite my own state of drunkenness, I still had enough sense not to make a shortcut across a muddy meadow.

So we left the others in the forest, making our way slowly down the path covered with old leaves and twigs. It wasn't very dark yet, although the sun had hidden behind the trees just a few minutes ago. The birds had stopped singing in the trees, but the quietness of the evening was broken by the calming sounds of grasshoppers chirping in the tall grass.

I draped Blaise's arm over my shoulders, as the poor lad was barely able to walk. "Oi, mate, take a hold of yourself. You are not a petite ballerina and I have problems with the coordination of my own legs, too, so please, help me out a bit!"

I wasn't sure if Blaise heard me or not but after slapping him in the cheek lightly, he clearly put a bit more effort into walking. "Srree," he slurred, and I took a firmer hold of his waist.

The walk was long and satiated with physical agony. Blaise managed to tumble down every two hundred feet and once he was very close to falling into a trench by the road. I don't think I had ever cussed so much in my life over such a short period of time.

The guards at the gates laughed at Blaise's state mercilessly, but let us in without too many fitting remarks.

"Just a couple of more steps and we're there, Blaise."

"'M fine…"

The floor boards were creaking as we walked down the corridor, passing doors to other men's rooms.

"Okay, we're here. Do you think you can climb to your own bed?"

Muttering something unintelligible, Blaise gradually crawled up into his own bunk. I had not been looking forward to giving him my own bed, so this was a relief to me. The second his head hit the pillow, he was fast asleep and I took his boots off for him, trying not to feel disgusted at their state.

Jerry had managed to change into his night clothes and was sleeping in his own bed peacefully, snoring lightly. I opened the window for a bit because the room reeked of alcohol and mud and something else that I did not want to name.

I made my way to the bathroom and discovered Emerson splashing water onto his face. As I opened the door wider, he lifted his gaze and saw me in the reflection of the mirror in front of him.

"So the others stayed in the forest?"

"Yes," I answered curtly and moved to rinse my own mouth of the taste of beer.

There was a moment of silence during which Emerson went back to the room where Jerry and Blaise were sleeping soundly. I brushed my teeth and washed my face, feeling better already. I looked at myself in the mirror on the wall in front of me, leaning to the cold edges of the sink with my hands.

Yes, I still looked the same, despite the strangeness of the past few days. My pupils were dilated from alcohol, but otherwise it was me staring back with those green, those goddamn green eyes. Eyes that were nothing like Draco Malfoy's.

The thought of the blond man made my face twist into a grimace. At that moment I really wanted to punch something.

I wondered what he was doing, whether he was still alive or not. Quite often inmates killed each other for the food tokens each prisoner was given, so during the night one had to be alert even when they were asleep. It was evident that not all of the dead bodies that were carted away from the inmates' barracks each morning had died of natural causes; sometimes they were strangled to death or clearly beaten to death.

Giving myself a final look in the mirror, I headed back to my bed and changed into something more appropriate to sleep in.

Emerson was also changing into his night clothes by his own bed. His caramel brown hair was pointing in every direction and as he removed his shirt, tanned, golden skin was revealed.

'_You don't know before you try.'_

The lamp on a small table was casting a warm glow onto the other man's naked back. The skin looked smooth as silk.

I walked closer to Emerson who still had his back turned towards me. He hadn't heard my steps.

I reached out, but before I could touch him, he turned around.

"Harry?"

I froze and dropped my hand to my side.

"What're you doing?"

'… _born the way I was… doing what felt natural to me…'_

"Uh… Harry? Are you there?"

'_Not quite_,_'_ I thought to myself. "Yeah, of course I am."

"Right…" Emerson said doubtfully and pulled a shirt on. "If you say so."

"I do!"

"I said 'right', didn't I? Ah, well, whatever," Emerson said, sounding annoyed, and turned to go to bed.

This attitude insulted me, unbelievably so, probably because I was still drunk and it was _Emerson_, the flaming tosser, who was being cocky. "Don't use that tone of me, you poof."

He turned back to look at me over his shoulder and whispered, "Don't… The others might hear and I'd –"

"Like I give a shit about what happens to the likes of you."

"Harry, can't you just let it be? I told you, I'd do anything if you kept these… things to yourself. I have too much to lose."

"Damn right you have." A hangover was starting to creep into my skull already.

"A family –"

"- with a mother and a father."

He gulped. "Yes."

"I don't know how you can live with yourself."

"It wasn't up to me!"

"Like fuck it wasn't! Who's forcing you to do and think the way you do? Who?"

"Harry, you couldn't possibly understand…"

"And I wouldn't want to."

There was a pause and Emerson sat onto his bed, elbows perched against his knees. Wearily, he asked, "Why are you doing this?"

"Because you deserve nothing better," I hissed and narrowed my eyes at him maliciously. My, it felt good to see him suffer.

"Could you speak a bit quieter?" He said. "And what about you? Is what you're doing right?"

I charged at him and grabbed his throat. Leaning in, I growled with a low voice, "Scared, pup? Afraid that Blaise and Jerry will hear and go straight to my father? Or are you afraid of the beating you would get from them before handing you in?"

His eyes were bright and wide, hands trying to pry my fingers away from his throat. He coughed and rasped, "Let go of me!"

"It would be so easy to kill you right here, right now, you know? It would save the others the bother." I squeezed a bit harder and felt his trachea between my fingers as I cut his air supply.

"You – You wouldn't –"

"Surely I would have a lot of explaining to do, but I would get out of this clean and innocent. Sexual molestation is very condemnable, especially if my father happened to hear I was the victim."

He was trashing and trying to pull my hands away from his throat. His breathing was wheezing and getting raspy. "H-harry – Please – L-let go!"

The sensation was insanely satisfying. I saw how his eyes started to gradually go out of focus and his face was beginning to lose its healthy colour. I leaned a bit closer and his eyes started to flutter closed due to lack of oxygen. I could smell him and feel warmth radiating from him.

I smiled and pushed him away.

"Not a very big man after all, are you, Emerson?"

Emerson was gasping for air on his bed, massaging the abused skin of his throat and looking at me with pure terror written across his face.

I moved closer again and he backed up against the wall of his bunk. "Don't come any closer!"

"Or what? You'll scream?"

I grabbed his hair, pushing his face into the mattress. I leaned over him and rested the fingers of my other hand lightly on the back of his neck, drawing small circles there. I whispered in his ear, very intimately, "Go on, scream. I would love to tell the others what happened here."

I brushed my nose against the shell of his ear, breathing in his scent. Emerson's muffed voice stuttered, "I don't – You win."

"I know," I stated, amused, and gave his neck a small, experimental lick. I felt him shudder beneath me.

"What on earth are you doing?" He shifted towards the post of his bed, but I held on. I twisted his arm behind his back and squeezed his wrist so hard in my grip that he yelped in pain, trying to get free.

Lifting my mouth next to his ear again I said, "Isn't this what you do to that – what was his name – Franz?"

I continued my ministrations and threaded my fingers into his hair, massaging his scalp.

"What would you do if he was brought here? If he was sent to a concentration camp?"

He turned his head to the side a bit, looking at me with an interesting combination of emotions on his face. "If it was your doing, I would kill you."

I chuckled and turned to look at him deep into his blue eyes, speaking softly but dangerously, "Or maybe he's somewhere already, like in Dachau or Auschwitz." His eyes flickered and glared daggers at me. "Or maybe he's nowhere anymore. Maybe he's been dead for a long time already but you just haven't been told."

Pressing my lips forcefully onto his, I closed my eyes for a few seconds. At first it wasn't all that different from kissing a woman but then he started kissing me back, hesitantly at first but then opening up for me. All of a sudden there was a warm, wet tongue touching mine, fearfully exploring my mouth and tasting and feeling me.

I was kissing a man. Another man.

My head was swimming with all the foreign stimuli I was receiving. It was bolder and more straight-forward and oh my, it _was_ different. The angles, the smell, the feel of rougher skin against mine… I had lowered my hand so that it rested on Emerson's lower back. The body of another man's felt completely different under my palm, the fragile softness wasn't there and the generous feminine swells and curves were conspicuous by their absence. Under my palm the muscles were tensed in a way that a woman's never were, and I didn't feel the need to keep myself under constant control at all. It was easy to let go and satisfy the hunger I felt by simply not holding back.

'_You don't know before you try.'_

There truly was a difference and it felt like something had clicked inside my head in a very unnerving way. My fingers were digging into Emerson's skin in a way that probably felt painful. I didn't care, though, and neither did Emerson, it seemed.

'_Look how the mighty have fallen'_, the little voice gibed, but I pushed it aside.

After what felt like a small eternity, I broke away from the kiss to catch my breath. Sitting up, I looked down at him again, and what I saw got me completely off guard.

His cheeks were flushed pink and his lips were slightly swollen and red. Emerson was watching me with a look that I interpreted as a shocked realisation, and slowly he inched to lean against the bed post. The sight was positively intriguing.

"I don't know what to say," Emerson said, slightly out of breath himself.

Taking a deep breath, I stood up and straightened my clothes. "Well I do."

His posture tensed again at my sharp tone. His eyes were watching my every movement.

I gave him one more nasty smile.

"That was disgusting and I hope that I'll be there to witness how you and your faggot friend die a horrible way."

* * *

_A/N: You know what to do, or at least I hope so. I have started on the sixth chapter, actually it's finished already and only needs some polishing... It's also going to be unnaturally long, about 6,000 words long so hopefully I'll find a beta who doesn't mind taking such an enormous task. I alsofinished the next chapter for Acrobat over two months ago but it's been really troublesome to look for betas -.- My RL's been more hectic than ever._

_Hmm, a small teaser might motivate you to motivate _me._ Some may be able to tell that I was listening to Kubb's song called 'Wicked Soul' while writing the chapter. You will also get to know how exactly Draco ended up in Buchenwald._

Once again, it was only him and me.

"Get up."

The blond slowly eased himself up and cautiously raised his head. I narrowed my eyes. _'All this humbleness must be an act of sorts.'_

"What are you going to –"

"Shut your mouth and come this way."

* * *

_-Devilita._


	7. Dangerous Deflections

_A/N: I promised to give you a 6,000 words long chapter, didn't I? Here it is, I hope you enjoy it._

_Thank you,_ **BlueMonkeyz8**_, for betareading again! I loved your comments :)_

* * *

_-_

_Chapter six: Dangerous Deflections_

_- _

I had not been able to sleep that night and had ended up grabbing a book that my mother had given me the last time I had visited her at the house where she and my father stayed at. I was fully ready for the day ahead, having showered and dressed an hour ago already, and I was reading the book on my bed as my roommates reluctantly got up and wandered around the room, carrying their razors and towels.

_"Here's a bit of something you may entertain yourself with during your spare time,"_ my mother had told me. _"I know what you young men are capable to come up with at your age, I wasn't always this old. Ah well, I'm probably only trying to delude myself into thinking you get preoccupied with literature rather than the other, less desirable options when I give you these books..."_

The book I was reading included some speeches made by der Führer, Goebbels, Himmler and some other important Third Reich officials. I found that it was difficult to stop reading as the text was quite captivating.

_"--- A fundamental change is necessary. At the risk of sounding reactionary and outdated, let me say this clearly: The first, best, and most suitable place for the women is in the family, and her most glorious duty is to give children to her people and nation, children who can continue the line of generations and who guarantee the immortality of the nation. ---" _

Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda and National Enlightenment. I remember Mother telling me she had been to the opening of women's exhibition in Berlin, in 1933, where Goebbels had given that speech. I had been very young back then and visiting my grandparents in France.

_"--- In Germany we have completely broken with a world of prejudices. I look at myself. I am after all a child of the People and I do not come from some castle but from a working-class family. I was not a General either but a soldier like millions of others. There is something wonderful about the fact that in our country an unknown figure from the millions of Germans, German working people and soldiers, could reach the highest position in the Reich and the Nation! At my side stand Germans from all walks of life who ---" _

That speech was given by Hitler on the first of May, 1937, in Berlin. One thing about der Führer that had always appealed to me was that he didn't come from a noble higher class family, on the contrary, his father had been a customs official and Hitler himself had wanted to apply to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, although apparently he did not get in and worked as an artist for a while. I don't have any skills on the field of drawing or painting but surely it must have felt extremely frustrating to hear how you are not 'fit' for studying arts.

After reading a few lines of the next speech, though, I suddenly didn't feel well at all.

_"---In the SS, today, we still have about one case of homosexuality a month. In a whole year, about eight to ten cases occur in the entire SS. I have now decided upon the following: in each case, these people will naturally be publicly degraded, expelled, and handed over to the courts. Following completion of the punishment imposed by the court, they will be sent, by my order, to a concentration camp, and they will be shot in the concentration camp, while attempting to escape. I will make that known by order to the unit to which the person so infected belonged. Thereby, I hope finally to have done with persons of this type in the SS, and the increasingly healthy blood which we are cultivating for __Germany__, will be kept pure. ---" _

I could feel my skin crawl and cold shivers going down my back. They were never gentle with the supporters of the National Socialist party if they turned out to be blood traitors. Heinrich Himmler had given this speech to the SS Group Commanders on the 18th of February, 1937.

I was startled out of my thoughts as Blaise tapped my shoulder. "Coming to eat?"

I snapped my book shut. "Yeah," I answered, giving him a forced smile.

-

_; 23rd of June, 1944, __Buchenwald_

There had been an incident in one of the blocks and twenty-seven prisoners had been killed by other inmates. I wasn't at all surprised to hear that all of them bore a pink triangle, and judging by the secretively smug expressions on the faces of those with red, green or black triangles - signs of criminals, political prisoners and antisocial prisoners - there was no question about who was to blame – although no one would be blamed, of course. Usually a homosexual would not be able to survive in a camp for longer than two months.

After the prisoners had had their morning roll-call, I was assigned to supervise the pink triangle prisoners as they carried the sand and stones from the right side of the road leading to their block to the left side of the road. Later that day, they were to carry the earth back to the right side. Seeing as they couldn't use any equipment to achieve this, the prisoners' hands often cracked open and the injuries caused them to mewl pathetically.

The day was a very hot one, indeed, and I wanted to gag at the disgusting smell of sweat lingering in the air. I hadn't gone swimming in a long time, and the mere idea of cool, clean water kissing my skin was reviving enough to give me some severely needed extra energy.

"No lazing about, you shitty queers, hurry up!" Ritter urged the inmates that didn't even look up at their commander as they tried to follow his orders, not speaking a word to each other. They knew better than to act that suspiciously under the strict surveillance of the guards. "Jerry, could you take care of that?" he then asked and pointed at a shivering lump on the ground some thirty feet further down the road.

Jerry walked over to the collapsed prisoner and kicked him in the side so that he could see the prisoner's face clearly. "Get back to work!"

The thin-haired inmate continued clutching at their stomach and didn't move, squeezing their eyes shut in pain and shaking violently, skin glistering with perspiration. I walked over to help Jerry out and grabbed the prisoner's arm, jerking him around. This resulted in him howling in pain like an animal and blood trickled down from his mouth, nose and ears. His eyes were getting alarmingly red as the veins burst on their surface, inside them, I don't know. This was not a good sign, and I gave Jerry a meaningful look.

Sighing in frustration, Jerry shot the prisoner and the dreadful screaming stopped immediately. The other prisoners were trying to look like they weren't watching, but judging by the slowness of their working they were not fully concentrating on their tasks.

"Quit gawking and continue working!" I bellowed and marched back to my position by the block where the road led.

By the end of the working day at around 8 pm, all the prisoners, dead or alive, were to gather by their block for an evening roll-call. The dead were laid out at the end of the building to be counted, and later they would be burned in the mortuary.

I was feeling very tired as I stood there, not having slept enough the previous night and having had a long working day in hot weather. My head was pounding with probable sunstroke and I felt slightly nauseous. My eyes were not drooping, but they had gone out of focus and I only stared blankly into nothingness, thinking how much I wanted to go to supper and wash up for the night. I really couldn't be bothered to actually go swimming; it seemed like too much work.

The briefest flash of blond hair caught my eye, though.

Darting to look to my right, I did not see the blond head I had expected to see. Instead, there were prisoners in tattered clothes staring at the ground or the officers, looking ten times as tired as I felt. My gaze continued roaming over the crowd, searching for the man with the radiant light hair and grey eyes.

The roll-call ended and the prisoners started marching back into their blocks.

"Finally the day is over," Jerry stated with great satisfaction. "I'm bloody starving; I could probably eat anything they gave me. Let's go."

"No need to wait for me, Jerry. I'll be there in a minute," I told him and went back to observing the pink triangle prisoners going back to their building.

Jerry just shrugged and walked off, too hungry to ask anything more.

My vision was getting a bit blurry and I needed to shake my head to clear it. I could feel how my skin was becoming hot and damp with sweat, although the temperature outside was not as high anymore as it had been just a few hours earlier. Maybe the flash had just been a figment of my imagination? Maybe I had started hallucinating now? Whatever the case was, these thoughts were enough to make me decide to finally go to eat something, or if my stomach kept doing somersaults, I was going to at least have a glass of water.

The last ones in the line of prisoners going back to their block were passing me by the door when a powerful wave of dizziness suddenly hit me. I swayed on my feet for a few seconds, feeling like I was in a carousel. My legs gave way under me and I collapsed to the ground, everything going black.

I must have been out for only a second or two because when I woke up, it wasn't a friendly face of another SS guard that greeted me as I lay on my back on the ground.

My eyes were slowly going back into focus, and I could tell that the fuzzy figure towering over me was not wearing a uniform. Instead, I distinguished vertical stripes going down the front of the figure's shirt.

I could hear people shouting something that I couldn't make out, like I was underwater while others were above the surface, in another place at another point in time. Everything had frozen, the earth was pulsating beneath me, and I felt air rushing back to my numb body.

I slowly gained my eyesight only to see Draco Malfoy looking into my eyes with an unreadable expression on his face, mouthing words that I did not understand. I felt a hand on my forehead, but it was suddenly wrenched away and the blond man was pulled away from me.

Blinking in confusion, I only saw the darkening sky open in front of my eyes until Ritter entered my line of vision, worry written clearly across his face. He too was saying something and finally the fog in my brain seemed to be dissolving. "… there? Harry, do you hear me?"

Someone was helping me to sit up as I told the other man that, yes, I heard and felt just fine now but I couldn't help holding my forehead. I wasn't a physically weak person at all but the equation of having relatively low blood pressure, having had a long and tiring working day and not having eaten anything since breakfast must have caused me to momentarily pass out.

_'Oh, for God's sake! Fainting now, am I? Father's going to be so proud if he hears about this_,_'_ I thought to myself with a grimace.

I turned to see the blond man covering his face with both hands as a guard named Jean was hitting him in the head with a baton. Draco's fingers and the front of his shirt were stained with blood. Jean grabbed him by the hair and jerked his head back so that Draco had to lift his hands to take hold of the guard's wrists to ease the pain, and I saw how there was blood flowing out of Draco's nose and the split lip. He received another hard blow in the face and yelped in pain, squeezing his eyes shut. I got a strong feeling of dejá vu.

"Let him go," I said before I could think twice and Jean lifted his eyes to look at me strangely. Ritter stared at me in surprise before looking over at Jean, shaking his head in a way that I interpreted as 'the poor lad must have hit his head really hard.' However, Jean did follow my request and let go of Draco, who was scrambling backwards to lean against the wall of the block with a horrified expression on his pale features. I could almost hear his thoughts of how he was going to die.

For some reason I wanted to laugh, but decided against it since Ritter and others were questioning my mental stability as it was.

"What are we going to do with him?" Jean asked, and Draco inched towards the door, keeping an eye on the guards who were discussing his future, his _life_, with such ease.

I mustered a cold, uncaring look as I glanced over at the mortified man.

Grey eyes shining with trepidation, Draco Malfoy sank to his knees and surrendered completely, waiting for what was to come and knowing there was nothing he could do about any decision made regarding him. Lip still bleeding, he looked up at me with clear eyes as all colour drained from his face. He did not say a word, did not utter one plea for forgiveness.

To have such a power over someone else was unbelievable exhilarating. He seemed so small, so negligible, kneeling on the ground at my mercy.

While it was obvious that I could do anything with his life, it was not entirely clear what it was that I actually wanted to do with it. The most logical option would of course have been to kill him right there and then, because that was what was done in situations like the one he was in at the time.

However, the idea of seeing the man I knew by the name Draco Malfoy die in front of my own eyes did not appeal to me as much as it probably should have.

"Don't bother doing anything. I'll take care of this," I growled and gave Ritter a determined look. I hoped he didn't notice how I found it slightly difficult to look into his piercing blue eyes for very long.

"Right," Ritter said after a while, stretching the word a little. "Perhaps you also ought to go see the camp doctor, just in case. See you later then, Harry."

Jean gave me an acknowledging nod and joined the other guards as they headed for supper, and I was left alone standing by the door of the block. I watched the others go and whipped my head around to look at the still kneeling inmate. He was now hanging his head and leaning to the ground with his hands, gravel digging into his palms.

Once again, it was only him and me.

"Get up."

The blond slowly eased himself up and cautiously raised his head. I narrowed my eyes. _'All this humbleness must be an act of sorts.'_

"What are you going to –?"

"Shut your mouth and come this way."

I knew exactly how familiar a situation it was. For the second time in a fortnight I was leading Draco Malfoy somewhere where other guards and prisoners did not wander very often.

It was getting darker already, and the air was damp with what was obviously going to turn into mist by the morning. The earth beneath my feet was black and sandy as prisoners long since dead had removed all the bigger rocks with their bare hands.

I looked to the sky and saw a couple of dim stars twinkling between the clouds. The moon's cold light shone through the slowly passing clouds that attempted to wipe it out of sight every now and then. The clouds themselves looked like translucent, grey ghosts as they slowly, silently drifted across the darkening sky.

I thought to myself, _'It's going to be a cold night_._'_

The camp was starting to quiet down as most of the prisoners had done their work for the day and a big portion of the guards had gone to eat. I did not look around too much, in case I came out looking suspicious, but nevertheless I kept my eye on Draco to make sure he did not escape. Surprisingly enough, he followed me like an obedient dog, which was a sign of trust, complete loss of hope, or very smart thinking, seeing as an escape attempt would most certainly have forced me to kill him.

Looking over my shoulder briefly, I also noted that he had cast his eyes to the ground, clearly trying to hide his thoughts and fears from me. I was beginning to feel very restless at this point, for reasons unknown to me.

I had taken us to a small spinney that was not big enough to have cut down and that suited my purposes just fine; it provided enough cover to prevent others from detecting any movement in the twilight. I took hold of Draco's sleeve, glanced to my left and right and yanked him into the bushes. For a few seconds there were sounds of twigs snapping and leaves rustling but then, silence, as we both stilled to listen to any possible footsteps or voices. Only the trees just outside the barbwire fence surrounding the camp were sighing in the light wind.

Draco had sat on the ground and pressed himself into a filbert, but I merely crouched down a little, stepping behind a few young birches. I looked to see if there was anyone else in the vicinity of our hiding place, and, fortunately, I discovered that there was nobody else in sight.

I turned to look at the man who had now wrapped his arms around his knees, shoulders hunched up. He looked so small once again. He had lost a terrible amount of weight since the day he arrived here, which was completely understandable. The jutting collarbones reminded me of those of a fragile bird's and his knees looked knobbly beneath his loose trousers, not to forget that his skin looked greyer and greyer each time I saw him. I could practically see the life leaking out of his body.

"Why did you do it?"

He lifted his head. "What? Why I just…" he started but trailed off, sounding tired. "It was automatic," he finally choked out, looking slightly confused with himself as well. "Sir."

"Automatic?" I asked in wonder, "You said it yourself, 'you don't owe me a thing.' Why on earth would a prisoner do something like that?"

Draco looked away, frowning or scowling, I didn't know, and I heard him mutter something that I didn't catch.

"What was that?"

Through gritted teeth, he hissed, "I _said_ you didn't seem like the other guards. There was something different about you. I acted on instinct."

"'Different'? I am no different from my colleagues! We work for the same cause; we have the same goals and ideals! How _dare_ you insinuate anything else?"

When he turned to look at me, it was as if his eyes were made of ice. The piercing eyes of a dangerous beast were boring into mine and the bottomless darkness of Draco Malfoy's gaze was quite disturbing. "You keep telling that to yourself, but it won't make it any less true. Any friend of yours would have had me beaten to death or worse, but you," he emphasised, "_you_ did no such thing. You've helped me out twice already. You're different from them."

There was no denying the fact that I had not acted like a true SS soldier when I had saved him from death, not only once but _twice_. Nevertheless, it was unnerving to hear someone call you 'different.' It held such negative connotations that it felt like that one word brought me closer to the prisoners, closer to him. I was not a prisoner. I was free and Draco wasn't.

"You ignorant little vermin, you don't know what you're talking about! Look who's wearing the prisoner's outfit! Not me, _you_."

He regarded me with an icy, calm gaze. "You are a prisoner of your own uniform but you're too blind to see it."

I had clenched my fists against my sides in fury and narrowed my eyes dangerously. "Hitler is my leader but he is not my keeper. I follow him because I believe in what he says. I'd do anything, _anything_, for him, and if your kind prevents us from achieving the greater good -"

"Then why did you not let the others kill me there in front of my block? Did you bring me here to do the job yourself? Or…" his voice suddenly became a lot lower, "Or do you want something _else_ from me?"

My stomach felt suddenly very warm and I tried to pull myself together, which was extremely difficult when the blond man was looking at me with a knowing, secretive smile on his face.

"Uh…" I felt my face heat up, "You do not have the right to question me or my reasons! I, however, want to know what you meant by saying you acted on instinct. Answer me!"

The knowing look didn't falter, but the smirk toned down a little as Draco answered, "I was going to become a doctor. It was my calling before I was brought here and it pains me to see all these people like this. It is very easy to occasionally forget that if you make the mistake of helping someone else, it may lead to your own demise. Just today my calling almost cost me my life."

"You wanted to become a doctor?" I asked in amazement.

"Yeah, I did," he repeated. "But none of matters anymore, does it?"

His voice was very bitter and sad. "I guess not."

"I had only just started my studies two years ago," he continued. "In two weeks' time I would have had important exams coming up, so I often read by my desk late into the night. On the streets below I saw how _you_ people went patrolling around and scaring the shit out of the inhabitants of my street, arresting my neighbours one by one. I could hear the screams, the walls weren't very thick.

"I couldn't leave, though I knew it was only a matter of time before they knocked on my door. My cousin was eight months pregnant and so ill that she couldn't even leave the bed, so I had to take care of her. All of her siblings, her husband, and her parents had been taken three months earlier when she had been away, having gone to the hospital for a check up. It almost killed her when she heard the news," Draco said, with a voice that spoke of worry and love towards the said cousin, and I could tell that the man was reliving those moments as he spoke. His features were hard.

"Then one night they finally came to arrest us. I don't know what happened to Dora, I tried to find out, but so far they haven't told me anything. In all probability, she's dead now. She was pregnant with her first child and the illness had taken a great toll on her. It's impossible that she would have survived under those conditions."

I could see how Draco's eyes were getting glossy but he spilled no tears.

"If only I had dared to move her somewhere else…. Then she might have had some chances of surviving, but I was too much of a _coward_ to take the risk. Had I not studied medicine and had I not known what the consequences of moving her would have been, I might have been able to hide her somewhere safer."

I merely listened as he talked. I had not expected to hear all this, but I couldn't bring myself to interrupt him. I was _interested_ in what he was saying.

Draco seemed to snap out of those thoughts and silence fell between us before he looked up at me.

"So what are you going to do with me now? Are you going to kill me?" He was angry, very angry, but there was fear colouring his voice beneath the surface.

His split lip and nose had stopped bleeding, but his shirt and face were still stained with dried blood. Blood and dirt had caked under his fingernails and there was a hole in the elbow of his shirt, making him look a lot like a beggar.

"No," I said. "No, I'm not."

Instantly I knew I was defying my father, defying my Führer and my origin – everything that I had grown up with and grown to respect.

Had I no shame left? Did this, did _he_ outweigh those things?

I asked myself all the questions that others would have asked me had they known what I had done, but I found that I had no concrete answers.

My father was right; my mother had been to kind with me as I did what I wanted to do and failed to do what I was supposed to. She had brought me up to become a weakling, I thought, a weakling with no sense of duty and no future, seeing as I was not in control of myself but instead my emotions, my goddamned _emotions_ had me in a leash, so to speak. I realised that that was a very feminine characteristic.

Then I looked at the blond man half-hidden in a bush. He was unusually pretty for a male, I thought. His lips, now split, were faintly pink and slightly fuller than a man's lips usually were, perhaps due to Jean's blows, and his eyelashes were fairly long and almost white as they framed those clear grey eyes. His shoulders were neither narrow nor wide; his figure was more like a dancer's than someone who lifted weights. His hands reminded me of someone who played piano.

He looked like someone who had great emotions within him and expressed them with effortless grace.

"Do you dance? Do you play piano?" I blurted out, truly wanting to know.

He looked surprised at my question, but answered nonetheless. "I used to dance, yes. My father paid for my dancing lessons ever since I was a child. And my mother taught me to play piano."

I wanted to scream. I wanted to let all my anger loose and rage and rip the leaves out of the trees and I wanted to feel the earth quake in sympathy with me.

How was it possible for someone to get under your skin like that? What had Draco Malfoy done to cause me to behave this way and _what was happening to me?_

The blond was looking at me suspiciously. "You alright there?"

That angered me further. He was asking if I was alright? _He_, who was severely malnourished, injured and probably ill, was asking if I, Harry Potter, the son of the camp's leader, was _alright_? I wanted to throw something at a wall and hear it shatter, but there was nothing for me to break. That was breaking me from the inside.

The twilight had turned into full darkness, the orbs on the sky casting their glow down upon us, the living and the dead. Grasshoppers had started chirping again, reminding me of the time I dragged the drunken Blaise out of the woods.

In the end it all comes down to who plays their cards the best. Jerry might have been a master on that field when talking about Poker, where one is not to give away what their cards are like, but then, at the right moment, they reveal what they have and either win or lose. Jerry often said that life was like a deck of cards, and standing there in the small spinney, I found that he was right.

It was okay to show emotions as long as you won. You can cheat, you can manipulate, and you can think whatever you like, as long as you don't get caught.

Emerson had got caught by me. He hadn't played his cards with enough talent. He had probably fooled his wife, he had fooled his children, and he had fooled us, the other SS guards. Although he had claimed that it had been the first time he thought of a man romantically, erotically, whatever, I hadn't believed him for a second. He called the man in the picture with the name 'Franz,' and doesn't that say just how good friends they were and how well they knew each other? You don't go calling strange men 'Franz,' do you?

My father himself had once said that sometimes one needs to take risks. I know he had taken so many risks in his life that at one time it might have landed him in prison, but now he had achieved his goal. He had fought for his dreams and he had won.

The only thing that I had yet to find out was what I wanted, as simple as that. What was it that I dreamed of? Surely I knew what was expected of me, my father had made sure of that, but so had his parents and still he had gone against them. They hadn't supported him but he had kept his head and carried out his plans in spite of what they had told him to do.

Draco Malfoy was still looking at me, asking again if I was 'alright.'

Perhaps I was not 'alright,' but I could only hope that the direction I was taking wasn't going to lead to my own downfall.

In a blink of an eye I was straddling him, pressing him further into the bush and with wide eyes he quickly looked up. I lifted my hands to cradle his face as I brought it closer to mine and reflexively he raised his hands to rest them on my hips. My whole body was trembling and I thought, panicking slightly, _'Is there anything for me to gain from this?'_

I didn't smile, he didn't smile, and slowly I pulled him towards me until there were only a couple of inches separating us. His breathing was warm on my skin and I lowered my hand to caress his neck in a way that was a lot gentler than with Emerson. I needed to be gentler; this man was so different from Emerson, the _bastard,_ whom I only wanted to hurt while I wanted Draco to… to just be far away from others. From Jean and everything. To think of those thoughts was very strange, to say the least.

The air felt heavy to breathe and my eyes were fixed on his and his were on mine.

"Oh my God," he gasped out with a very, very slack-jawed expression on his face.

I felt our noses brush against one another lightly and I tilted my head to the side a little bit, bringing us only a breath away from each other as his lips radiated heat into mine. I licked my own lips hurriedly, but in the process the tip of my tongue accidentally brushed against his lips, too.

Quick as a flash, Draco Malfoy closed the gap between us, pulling me close and crashing his chapped lips onto mine. His lip split open again, becoming very warm and swelling and I could taste the coppery blood on my tongue as it danced against his in a heated kiss, serving only to make me even hungrier for Draco, if possible.

There was want and there was need and suggestion in the kiss, and I found it very hard to think of stopping what I was doing despite who I was doing it with. The exquisite moans that my ears picked up caused me to notice an unexpected erection pressing against my bottom as I had lowered myself to sit in Draco's lap. Even more surprisingly, this seemed like a very desirable reaction as my own body betrayed me and answered in a very similar manner.

With a smack, I tore my lips away from his for a very brief second, grabbed the front of his shirt and forcefully pulled him out of the bush, pushing him to the ground instead so he lay on his back.

_'Damn_,_'_ I thought, _'to hell with it.'_

Once again, I let my animalistic instincts take over and attacked his mouth, taking hold of his wrists which I pinned to the ground as I settled between his slightly parted legs.

"Ahh, mm…" Draco groaned, a sound that sent a shiver running up my spine.

I let myself forget everything and everyone else for that moment, which was something that would have scared me under normal circumstances. I didn't think, only did what felt good to me as we rocked against one another, kissing the whole time. It didn't even occur to me that we weren't being very quiet anymore.

The motion sped up and I let go of his wrists only to caress his side and his hip with my right hand while the left prevented me from crushing him under me. His hands flew to my hair and as his fingers ran through it, I could have purred.

The tingling feeling caused by friction between our clothed erections was building up quickly and I shuddered as he finally arched into me, gasping for air and a long moan escaped his lips. He was still clinging to my neck, kissing me and pressing his body into mine when I felt an orgasm rush through my own body, taking me high as a kite and blinding me with the whiteness of the feeling. It felt like I was somewhere very far away from Buchenwald and the life I had known before.

Soon the air wore very thin between us andmy spent body collapsed on top of his. Gasping for air I buried my face in his neck for a short moment before pulling away.

The reality of the situation then dawned on me and it felt like someone had poured a bucket full of cold water on me. However, I didn't know if it was an unwelcome feeling at all as I actually felt fairly over-heated from what we had just done.

As I lay there, stillon top of him,and looked at the man beneath me, unable to tear my eyes away from him.

His hair was spilled around his head and from the ground he looked at me with heavy eyes, pupils dilated from lust. He was breathing hard, chest heaving rapidly, and, to my delight, his cheeks were flushed bright pink. Draco Malfoy looked exceptionally beautiful as heregarded me with certain warmth and satisfaction in his eyes.

"Wow. I knew you had it in you," he smiled – no, _smirked_ - and I could only stare back.

* * *

_A/N: I've been a very good girl and updated this story quite quickly despite the obvious drop in the number of reviews. Let me know what you think of this story! Point out errors! Tell me what you feel! Rant!_

_No teaser this time. I haven't written enough to actually put one here. Some of you also asked about Acrobat, and all I can say is that I am going to update it sometime in the near future, no fears. Also, thank you, you lovely people, for your kind words and for offering to beta read for me. I appreciate it, really I do, but it seems like _BlueMonkeyz8_ does not detest my writing _:) _I'd love to reply to all the reviews here at the end of this chapter but apparently it's not allowed anymore. Pity that this place doesn't work like LJ's._

_Yours,_

**-Devilita.**

EDIT: Those who are interested in this era should see an oldfilm called 'Schindler's List', by Steven Spielberg. I saw it for the first time when I was 13 or 14 and it really affected me. I borrowed it again a week ago and it still captures my attention with all its intensity. It's a classic, really, and it shouldn't be hard to find. Although mostly black&white, it's absolutely brilliant, definitely worth watching.


	8. Price Tags

((_"How fortunate for leaders that men do not think." _- Adolf Hitler))

_-_

_Chapter seven: Price Tags_

_-_

A nasty feeling prickled behind my eyes and made my stomach twist and turn. I wanted the ground to swallow me whole. I wanted to wipe myself off the face of the earth or alternatively, go back in time and make all of this undone.

But I couldn't.

'_This is not happening, this is not happening to me.'_

A lazy, satisfied smile was gracing Draco's rosy lips. His clothes were crumpled and his tousled hair stuck in every direction. My throat contracted as he rolled his shoulders. _'He did this to humiliate me, to degrade and corrupt me,' _I reasoned, suddenly feeling slightly nauseous.

I felt dirty, stupid, gullible, and used. The sticky wetness in my pants made me feel disgusted with myself and I wanted to have a long, burning hot shower and scrub off all the evidence on my skin. I would use the shampoo and soap that the camp doctor gave me not long ago and wash off all these thoughts that Draco Malfoy had forced in my head.

Then he reached out and as his fingers touched my cheek, I jerked away from the touch, as if burnt. He lowered his hand and looked at me with a deep frown on his face. Those grey eyes suddenly turned less playful, all the mirth vanishing from Draco's face.

"I see how it is," he said darkly and looked away, jaw clenching.

I rose up while he still lay on the ground, propped up by his elbows, and I swallowed, as my throat felt dry as sandpaper. The moon's cold light cast dark, artistic shadows on his angular face. _'How could someone so beautiful be so deceitful? It's wrong.'_

'_Or then you're wrong. Given any thought to that possibility?'_

'_Shut up! I know I'm right.'_

"What the fuck did you expect, then?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I've learned to expect nothing short of hatred from your lot."

Once again I wanted to let all my anger out and rant and kick and demand answers from someone wiser than me as I desperately wanted to know what was happening to me.

I knew I had options. I knew I could get rid of the problem itself by getting rid of the object of my desires. It would probably have been the logical and smart thing to do, after all. I would have been lying to myself had I claimed there was no turning back, of course, but something deep within me told me to hang on to this and see what Ms. Destiny had in store for him and me.

"You don't know a thing about me," I ground out.

I fished out a couple of food coins that I had found lying around in our room and had slid in my pocket. No one was going to miss them; I knew that for a fact. To us, the guards, they were worthless. I handed the three miserable, dirty coins to Draco whose mouth dropped open at the sight of them, as if they were made of gold and diamonds. To him they probably were more precious than any treasure on earth. His whole face lit up as he squeezed them in his hand, hardly believing they were actually there. The very same look of disbelief made his features glow the same way as when I had given him the ridiculous little piece of bread.

"Thank you," he whimpered, breathless. "I don't know why you're doing this, why you chose _me_, but thank you… God, I don't know what to make of you."

'_Seeking absolution? Does it give you some sick pleasure to give him hope, when in fact there is none for his kind? Or do you want him to show you his gratitude like a good little whore should?'_

"You're Jewish. How did they find out that you're a faggot as well?" I spat out the word 'faggot' like it was poison. He didn't seem affected by it, though, and I scowled.

"I don't see how that is any of your business," he said, but knew that it would be very unwise to not answer. "Someone thought they'd be able to save their own skin by revealing his acquaintances' names. He was wrong and died a week later anyway." Someone had betrayed him. A lover, it seemed. The mere idea was thoroughly appalling, but not at all surprising.

The camp was completely silent by then and the wind had stopped altogether. It was so cool that the air we exhaled turned into a white mist that disappeared into the air almost immediately. Everything around us felt black and blue and dark grey as the near-by lights had gone out hours ago already.

I looked at my golden pocket watch although I could barely see it. Its delicate hands showed it was twenty to midnight.

"Come on," I said and turned to go. He stood up to follow me and we made our way out of the bushes.

We walked in the shadows to avoid the watchful eyes of patrolling guards. I didn't want to start explaining what I was doing outside with a prisoner at such a late hour in the night, so as soon as we heard an SS man coming towards us, we ducked behind carts and hid behind corners until they had passed. Hurriedly, we made our way to Draco's block, where I let him inside as quietly as possible.

Draco took hold of my arm, and my skin tingled where he touched me through my uniform. I turned to look at the perplexed young man.

"Why are you doing this? You're not supposed to."

It was very dark and I couldn't see his face very clearly. I did see how the clear surface of his eyes reflected what little light came from the moon through the doorway. I enjoyed watching as those eyes glinted like diamonds, the other man's focus shifting from one of my eyes to the other, searching for something that I was not willing to give away.

The corner of my mouth twitched upwards as something warm spread inside my stomach, burning like a shot of very strong liquor. "You didn't seem like the other inmates."

I stepped back, even though I didn't really want to, and swung the door shut as he still stood there, looking back at me confusedly. Outside I took a deep breath, almost tasting him on my lips as I closed my eyes. I headed for my barrack, feeling tired but not sleepy. That night I didn't even try not to think of Draco Malfoy as I lay in my bed for a long while before finally falling asleep.

-

_; 28th of June, 1944, __Buchenwald_

Yet another Tuesday dawned sooner than I had hoped. My bed was so warm and the fabrics felt good against my skin, making it very difficult for me to toss the covers off of me and go to the bathroom. Dragging my feet drowsily, I went to stand in front of a mirror and squinted.

I had a pimple on my forehead, close to my hairline.

'_Oh fuck it, what's this? I'm too old for this,'_ I thought grumpily to myself and splashed water onto my face.

"Harry! Harry, have you heard the news?"

I towelled my face dry and turned to look at Blaise. "No, what's happened?"

"The Americans have captured Cherbourg, General von Schlieben surrendered! Do you know what this means?" He sounded very agitated. "They now have a brilliant spot for shipping all sort of material to their troops and whoever! It's not a surprise, but still, it has the shock factor in it, doesn't it? First the Normandy, and now this…"

"Where did you hear this from?"

"It was on the radio! I got it fixed this morning. I woke up at four to work on it and I heard the news just now."

"Calm down, Blaise. Just… shave your face." Whenever something happened, Blaise got very worked up and did his job more carelessly than usual. I hoped this carelessness didn't translate to using the razor carelessly as well. "You've got a job here; you're not of any help to those in France, especially if you let this affect your work effort."

"Yeah, of course," he breathed. "It's just hard to not think about it, you know? I thought Herr Führer had everything under control, that everything was going to turn out okay! I can't stand these setbacks."

I looked at him seriously in the eye, facing him fully. "He has," I said, "The Chancellor knows what he's doing, Blaise. Surely you don't seriously doubt that?" Blaise just blinked and I continued, " Germany cannot lose. War leaves none of the participants unscathed and our side is no exception. We've got the equipment, we've got the men, and we've got the morale! Everything will be alright."

'_I certainly hope so,'_ I added, but for the sake of Blaise's wellbeing, I left this private notion of mine unsaid. He nodded but didn't say a word and went to fetch his razor.

"Bloody French," I muttered to the mirror as I brushed my teeth angrily. I could already see what the day was going to turn out like.

-

_; 3rd of July, 1944, __Buchenwald_

Soviet forces had captured Minsk.

My father had to go to Berlin for a few days, so my mother wanted me to come visit her. I ended up holding her as she cried against the front of my uniform, clenching it in her tiny white fists.

"Don't cry, Mother. There is no need for you to worry."

"Of course there is." She looked up at me, eyes puffy and shining with tears. "I'm a wife and a mother, Harry."

It took almost an hour until she collected herself again. I had never seen her like that before and it worried me.

-

_; 10th of July, 1944, __Buchenwald_

Ritter turned up the volume on the radio.

"_The Allied forces have taken over __Caen__. Herr Heinrich Himmler has voiced his –"_

Blaise stumbled at the doorway and hit his knee on the edge of a desk. He had clearly not grown unaffected by the news, but he, along with all the other roommates of ours, had made a silent agreement not to talk about the misfortunes of the war while inside the barrack. It made our everyday lives slightly more bearable, although not at all easy. We all had our worries, and while we never voiced them unless it all became simply too much for us, we had to try and not take our frustrations and anger and fear out on other SS men. The inmates were a lot more suitable for that part.

-

_; 15th of July, 1944, __Buchenwald_

All the milk in the camp had gone sour. Five guards became sick from drinking it the day before. At first Jerry had thought his pains were the result of anxiety or oversensitive stomach, but when he went to see the camp doctor he was diagnosed with food poisoning. Of course, it wasn't anything life threatening to a young, healthy person such as Jerry, but he still had to take a day off and drink a lot of water.

-

_; 21st of July, 1944, __Buchenwald_

Our room's 'agreement of silence' was broken after we heard of the assassination attempt on Herr Hitler. It felt like all the pent-up emotion had just burst out of us at the news and endless amounts of speculations, questions, cussing, and accusations erupted in the air thick with tension and uncertainty. Der Führer had been badly wounded and for a while it felt like we were all handicapped until we were told his injuries would not lead to death.

"_Herr Hitler's right arm was severely injured in the explosion, but it has yet again been proven that an Aryan man is not defeated so easily. No physical injury, no scheme that our enemies could come up with is enough to make us crumble –"_

Later that day I heard my mother had miscarried. The pregnancy had been at an early stage so I couldn't really feel a loss of any kind but Mother did, and as my father had to leave for a few weeks again she felt very lonely in the house, not being able to accompany my father.

During the first few days I went to visit her as often as I could, but my duties were piling up and I started… forgetting about the whole thing. There was just too much on my mind.

-

_; 23rd of July, 1944, __Buchenwald_

I saw Draco working by the barbwire fence with other inmates and apparently his hair had been cut shorter to avoid spreading lice. I wasn't supervising the prisoners, only passing through that area of the camp, so I couldn't go to talk to him. I don't even think he noticed I was there, as he was concentrating on his task.

I couldn't deny that I felt very relieved seeing him there.

'_For as long as he's able to work, he's safe,'_ I thought. That evening I made an extra round during my shift of guarding the nocturnal camp, with an apple in my pocket that I told myself I had taken with me in case I became hungry. However, food was the last thing on my mind and I ended up throwing the fruit over the fence into the woods before returning to my barrack, feeling strangely disappointed.

-

_; 25th of July, 1944, __Buchenwald_

The whole camp was at turmoil. The past weeks had shown that the war had taken a new turn at some point and the enemies were growing more and more aggressive. My father had to attend yet another conference in Berlin as the latest news reached our camp.

The concentration camp of Majdanek had fallen into the hands of the Soviet troops in Poland. I'd heard rumours that the Soviets were planning on sending their own opponents there now that they had the camp captured. I truly hoped this was not the case, as the whole idea was simply unbelievable in all its insolence, but then again, what else were we to expect from those Slavic barbarians? (1)

-

_; 29th of July, 1944, in a forest near __Buchenwald_

'_There ought to be more Saturdays in a week,'_ I thought as I tipped back my sixth beer and slammed the bottle onto the wooden table. Even though it was 11 pm already, it was still very warm outside in the forest where I and a dozen other SS men were getting sloshed once again. The beer was not exactly cold, but cool enough for us who needed to get away from all the serious and political shit in the camp. The pile of empty bottles was growing at an alarming rate as a bunch of fully grown men emptied the contents in their stomachs like there was no physical limit to the amount their bodies could take in.

"Thirty-eight days!" Blaise moaned loudly. "I'm practically a virgin again, it's been _ages_ since the last time I –"

Blaise had never been exactly prudent about certain aspects of his life, but when pissed he became excessively melodramatic about everything. Ron tried to make him change the subject, probably trying to get his own mind out of the gutter by making Blaise stop talking about the thought-evoking, sore topic.

Ritter was talking to me about his future plans again. Not because he was self-centred, though, since I had been the one to ask him about them. This reminded me of how I didn't really have any plans at all.

My eye caught Emerson talking to a bloke from the room next to ours. I think his name was Hans. I narrowed my eyes as I noticed how Emerson kept touching the other man fleetingly, in ways that an outsider might deem accidental or completely casual, but I knew better.

A care-free bark of laughter came from Emerson's mouth as Hans said something worth laughing over. I bet it wasn't even intended to be anything very amusing.

Emerson took a long swig of beer, still chuckling a little and again focused his eyes on the other man, a mischievous glint in his eyes and a coy smile on his lips that made a thousand promises and then he said something in return. Hans raised an eyebrow and offered Emerson a cigarette, who accepted it and the other man gestured for him to follow him to the woods.

Something caught in my throat. They said they were going a bit farther away for a smoke as Jerry was asthmatic and had been sitting right next to Hans.

In the past Emerson had always refused when people had offered him a cigarette.

"_No thanks, I don't much fancy rotting my teeth," _he had once said good-naturedly.

I restrained myself from standing up and following them. It was a hard thing to do but in a matter of half hour I was in a state where the action of standing up in the first place was as demanding as riding a unicycle uphill.

My vision was close to zero and all I could do was lean my cheek against the surface of the table, slowly drifting off as the others still kept drinking, laughing, ridiculing each other and playing card games. It was completely dark by the time I was woken up.

"Harreeeeh… Wk'up!" I could tell it was Blaise by the way he whined out my name, but I was simply too tired to regard him in any way. He shook my shoulder. "C'mon, now…"

Still no reaction.

"Ritter, 'e won' wake up!"

"Right, Harry-boy, it's time to go now. We can't leave you here to get eaten by moles and badgers, can we?"

"Mmm… kay…" I muttered against the wooden table as I stirred from my drunken slumber for a bit, not looking forward to fighting off rodents and the like on my own. However, the task of lifting my clammy face off the rough surface felt overpowering to me so I stayed as I was until I was pulled up by force. My head lolled to rest against someone's chest.

My other arm was draped over Ritter's shoulders and the other over someone's who I couldn't recognise or see. The world spun around me.

-

The next morning I couldn't remember anything of the trip back so I must have passed out on my helpers. I lay on my bed, face down, and felt absolutely disgusting for the rest of the day. Jerry asked me how I was feeling and I gurgled something in response, so he gave up and tossed a towel on my head as I pressed my face further into my pillow.

-

_; 31st of July, 1944, Buchenwald _

Someone high up in the skies must have seen it fit to make the weather match the atmosphere in the camp, and Germany in general. It had been raining cats and dogs the whole night through and it didn't seem very likely that the weather was going to become better anytime soon.

Fat droplets of water poured down on those having to go outside, drenching them in an instant. Small rivulets had quickly turned into brooks that swiped away sand and smaller stones as the water flowed down the hills like miniature rapids. Some prisoners were carrying sacks of sand to prevent water from getting into cellars and other underground rooms while others were digging trenches to control the flooding streams. The guards had to scream their throats raw in order to be heard over the pattering sounds of water.

"Faster, faster! We haven't got the whole day to wait until you're finished digging a simple water trench!"

"This weather's insane," I said as I and my partner, a man named Tobias, stood under a shelter, supervising the prisoners' work. He was from the room next to ours so I had chatted with him before as well. I didn't really know much about him.

Tobias, or Tobi, as he was called by his mates, was watching the dark grey clouds. "It is, and after these rains we'll probably have a big bunch of sick prisoners in our hands. I'm not really looking forward to that workload. The last thing this camp needs is an epidemic."

"Yeah, fluctuation between excruciating heat and excessive downpour is not a good combination."

"Blaise is one lucky sod," Tobi said. It seemed like Blaise was usually the first person other SS men got to know from our room. "His shift ended hours ago and back then it didn't even rain as hard as it does now. I wouldn't be surprised if he had bribed someone upstairs."

I smiled. "How I wish I wasn't out here right now. I'm not a bookworm but I'd really prefer just lying in my bunk with a book open in my lap," I said, and nodded for Tobi to come with me to take a closer look at how the prisoners were progressing out in the rain. In a matter of seconds there was water running down the ridge of my nose and my neck, soaking the collar of my shirt instantly.

The other man walked beside me and wiped some water from his face. "At the moment, I would really love a nice, hot shower and after that, I'd have a cup of steaming hot tea with a spoonful of honey," he daydreamed. "And perhaps a couple of chocolate chip biscuits. I'd sit on my sofa, in the living room of my own house in the countryside, with my wife."

"You have a wife?" I asked.

"Well, not yet, but my girl and I are going to get married once I get out of here. I haven't seen her in a long time."

"What's her name?"

"Claudia," Tobi said with a voice that told just how much he really loved her. It was almost enviable. "She's a tiny little thing. I met her two and a half years ago in Florence and she's half French."

"Mm," was my eloquent reply as I let my eyes roam over the group of working inmates. Everything seemed to be pretty much in order, so after checking up on the prisoners' working pace, we hurried back under the shelter.

Everyone seemed to have so many plans, so many ideas about what do with themselves once this was all over. Tobi was going to marry his fiancée, Ritter would undoubtedly continue his studies, Blaise was going to keep on spending his father's money on whatever seemed appropriate, Beckenbauer would want to publish his book, as he was half-way through writing it already, and Ron had once told me he wanted to travel to Africa. Seeing lions in a zoo wasn't enough for him.

I did have plans, in a way. I had been told what my plans were, by my father.

-

_; 5th of December, 1941, Berlin _

_"You'll make an excellent politician one day, Harry. You just need to keep on doing well in your studies as you've done so far. Who knows how high you'll climb if you put your mind into it," Father had said one evening at the dinner table, between two mouthfuls of lamb. _

_I looked up from my food and set my utensils neatly on the plate next to a pile of peas. My parents were sitting at the other end of the table in our dining room. Our maid, Sandra, was pouring red wine into my father's glass. _

_"I don't want to become a politician," I answered curtly and dropped my gaze again. _

_The silence of the room was broken by the sound of a knife clattering on a plate. My mother plastered an apologetic smile on her painted lips. "Sorry, I'm so clumsy." _

_Father cleared his throat, and Sandra made her way out of the room with the bottle of wine in her hands. _

_His grip on the glass of red wine looked very firm. "You don't want to become a politician," he stated in a way that demanded further explanations. I didn't dare to look at him in the eye as I could sense what kind of look he was giving me. _

_I tried to gather up all the courage the seventeen-year-old me could muster. "I don't," I confirmed. "I want to become a professional athlete." _

_My father snorted. "You are not going to become a professional athlete, son," he informed me. "While it is important to be physically fit and let our opponents know how mighty German men and women are, let others bring the medals home. Sometimes brutal force is necessary, but real power, political power, gets you further than you could possibly imagine." _

_"In Hitler Youth we are told that academic knowledge is not as important as military training and exercise," I said back, confused by the contradictory messages. _

_"And that's exactly what they should be telling the youth. Harry, look at me when I'm talking to you." _

_"Yes, Father." _

_"You have been given the possibility to be better than the average German boy. While everyone has the chance to reach the highest positions, you are still very much privileged. I can help you on your way to become a high-ranking officer in the Third Reich. I have friends in posts worth dreaming of and one day they will step back and let the younger generation take over. I want to see you sitting in their chair." _

-

Over time I had imagined myself in various different kinds of professions. They had always been mere dreams, of course, as I had known just how big the shoes my father was expecting me to fill actually were.

I did want to make my mother and father proud, I truly did. I just wasn't sure whether I wanted them to accept and love me for being someone I was not.

-

_A/N: Thank you, you readers and reviewers, for your interest in this fic and a special thanks to my beta, BlueMonkeyz8, without whom I wouldn't dare to upload these chapters here for all people to see!_

_(1) Note to readers: I am not voicing my own opinion about the Slavs here (I could count as a Slav myself, I think), as I never am when I use degrading expressions concerning different groups in this story. I never intend these comments to be taken personally. No likie - no readie. _

_Please check the prologue for the new warnings. I need to make sure people know what they may encounter when reading this fic._


	9. Know Thy Limits

_A/N: Thank you for all the feedback you've given me and sorry for not updating any sooner. I've moved out and started my uni studies in a completely new country. I've also had some real trouble with my betas but **Lux** promised to do the job this time, so thank you!_

_I may need to repeat something that I've said a sufficient number of times before: do not read this fic if the era's too personal to you or you happen to have very fixed views on how authors are to describe Harry and Draco. I am not trying to offend anyone on purpose. The SS -letters decorate and stain my family albums as well._

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_

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_Chapter eight: Know Thy Limits_

_-_

_; 2nd of August, 1944, Buchenwald_

I didn't want to listen to the radio anymore. I didn't want to hear what was happening outside of Buchenwald but at the same time I wanted to know who was on the losing side, who was on the winning side and, most importantly, when the war was going to end.

It was not unlike following the course of a broadcasted football game on the radio, only that this time the game went on and on, from year to year, never seeming to end.

Also, during football matches you rarely got to hear how many men had fallen in battle. After all, the football players only got penalties and occasional injuries that healed over time. However, the people around me - my colleagues, my family and friends - were finding it harder and harder to stand up after each blow.

I still didn't know why Alvin had committed suicide. I blamed it on his character, of course, the way he was so weak and selfish for doing what he did, but I also knew how war could affect a man and how easy it was to just _snap_.

-

_; 4th of August, 1944, Buchenwald_

It had been two weeks since I heard the news about my mother's miscarriage, and my father had only been back very briefly before he had to leave again. Barbara, my mother's maid, had sent me a message to come over as quickly as I could.

I knocked on the door out of habit but stepped inside without waiting for a reply. Immediately I was greeted by Barbara, who was carrying a bowl with a rag hanging over the edge, partly dipped into the clear, rippling water.

"I am so glad you were able to come, young Mr. Potter. I was afraid you didn't get my message."

"Hello, Barbara. What's the matter? Why did you want me to come here?" I asked, looking down at the elderly woman with a white scarf tied around her head. The worry wrinkles on her face grew deeper and the bright lamps hanging from the ceiling made her greying hair look whiter than ever. She placed the bowl on a stool.

"It's Mrs. Potter," Barbara said, wringing her hands in her apron. "I'm afraid your mother is not recovering well from her loss at all. She doesn't want to come out of her room and eats only very little." The woman sniffed a little. "Her cheeks look so hollow, so hollow…"

I felt a sharp sting in my chest where I presumed my heart lay. "What has Dr. Schneider told you?"

"He – I was told Mrs. Potter is depressed. She refuses to take any medicine and wants to be left alone." At this point Barbara burst into tears and her wrinkles became extremely prominent as she scrunched up her face, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief.

"Sir, you must talk to your mother! I couldn't contact your father and I didn't know what to do! She told me not to tell you about any of this but I had no other option. Surely you understand? Oh, Lord, I have betrayed dear Mrs. Potter!"

I placed my hand on the sobbing woman's shoulder encouragingly. "My mother is a sensible woman, Barbara. You needn't worry. Once she's gathered her strength I'm sure she'll understand you did the right thing."

"Yes, yes, I hope you are right…"

"Are you alright now?"

"Of course, thank you. I must be off now, please talk sense to your mother?"

Nodding once, I said, "I will."

Determined, I headed for my mother's room. I knocked twice and twisted the door knob. "Mother?"

"Harry?" I heard a raspy voice from the bedroom and stepped inside. The air in the room was stuffy so I walked across the floor to open the window. I turned to look at the woman lying on the bed.

"Oh, Mother, what have you done to yourself?"

She looked so frail lying under the thin sheet with her bony hands resting lightly on top of them, fingers like a spider's legs. Her skin was almost white and there were dark smudges under her eyes. The gown she was wearing looked a few sizes too big on her slight form and her red hair looked greasy although it was obviously combed, most likely by Barbara. She was absolutely dreadful to look at.

"Oh, Harry… I told Barbara not to bring you here. I didn't want you to see me like this," she sighed wearily, looking at me with sad, tired eyes.

I knelt beside my mother's bed and took one of her hands in mine. "You are wasting away," I breathed as I took in her face. "What c-"

"Sssh," she shushed. "I'll be alright. I've just caught something –"

"The doctor said you were depressed! How on –"

"- caught something nasty and I'll be fine a few days. I just need to rest," she finished and looked at me reassuringly. I remembered that look from my younger days.

-

_; 11th of November, 1938, Berlin_

"_Mother, I am so sorry! It wasn't my fault I got an A- from my Algebra test, the teacher graded my paper all wrong because even Samuel got a mark higher than I did and –"_

"_Harry, darling." She looked at me with great warmth in her deep, green eyes and took my face in her hands. "An A- does not make me love you any less than if you got an A+. You are my eldest son and no matter how well you solve an equation, no matter how far you can throw a spear, you're always good enough for me."_

_The look she was giving me made me want to cry. I could tell that she meant every word she said to me and it was simply overwhelming. "But I wasn't the best! I've disappointed you and Father –"_

"_Your Father may not tell you often enough how proud of you he actually is. Believe me, Harry, he would do anything for you."_

"_He – I still didn't make him proud now! The _teacher_ –"_

_My Mother's eyes suddenly grew darker but by no means colder. The look she was giving me immediately shut me up and she stroked my unruly hair. _

"_Strive forward but admit your mistakes and always learn from them. Don't let setbacks get to you, hold your head high through tough times and love the ones close to you." _

_She kissed my forehead. I wanted to throw my arms around her neck and breathe in the sweet, floral perfume that she'd used ever since I could remember. _

"_And always wash your hands before dinner. Now, chop chop, Linda's prepared some pork and the food is not going to disappear from your plate on its own."_

-

"You look so thin, Mother. You _must_ eat something! I can't bear to look at you this way and please, don't be mad at Barbara! She was worried for you and I had the right to know."

"I will, I will," she said, trying to convince me. Her voice was disturbingly calm; I didn't like it one bit. After a pause she continued, "Have you heard anything from James?"

I pursed my lips as she looked at me under her lashes, her eyes twinkling with hope. "No, I haven't. He should be back in a week, though."

"Oh."

I brought my mother's hand to my lips and kissed her knuckles lightly. "Mother –"

She pulled the bed covers tighter around her and eased her back against the pillow. "Harry, I'm feeling very tired. I must get some sleep. It might be better if you went back to your barrack and came back maybe tomorrow?"

Before I could respond she went on, "I'll ask Barbara to prepare some soup for me. How's that sound, hmm?"

I gave my mother a defeated, wavering smile. "That sounds brilliant." I stood up and kissed her on the temple. "See you soon, Mother. I – I love you."

She smiled back. "I love you, too, Harry."

As I pulled the door shut behind me and I heard a moan coming from the other end of the corridor.

"Barbara?"

I peeked into the sitting room and saw Barbara lowering a big basket full of firewood beside the fireplace. She held her back as she straightened up and groaned again.

"Are you quite alright?"

The old woman started slightly as she hadn't heard me entering the room. "Oh, yes, of course, thank you for asking. It's just that I'm not a young girl anymore and some of these tasks are becoming increasingly hard for me to handle. Helen and Agnes have so much to do as it is so I couldn't possibly have them help me out here all the time." Her back made a few cracking sounds and I winced in sympathy. She let out a sigh of relief and went on, "Once Mrs. Potter is feeling better I'm sure I'll be alright as well.

"She flat out refused to let me do everything by myself. She said she felt useless as it was and wanted to have something to do in the house. A good-hearted soul, she is. Now that she has fallen ill, however, it feels like the amount of work I have has tripled and each trip to the firewood shed feels longer."

"So, you're in need of an extra pair of hands?"

"More like two extra pairs of hands. Even Helen struggles with her work and she's only 23."

As I went to fetch some firewood from the near-by shead to ease Barbara's work load, an idea struck me like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky. My hands tightened around the basket I was holding.

-

_; 5th of August, 1944, Buchenwald_

"Who?" Barbara asked as she polished a teapot made out of brass.

"Prisoner 1496302. You said you needed extra help and I know he would be very useful for you. He's even studied medicine."

The elderly woman looked as me suspiciously. "And how on earth do you know that, young Mr. Potter, if I may ask?"

"Never mind that," I waved my hand dismissively. "I just do." _'That's what he told me.'_

'_Maybe he lied.'_

"Hum," Barbara frowned contemplatively and set the shiny pot aside, picking up the lid.

"You'd take care of my mother, of course. I wouldn't trust her in anyone else's hands within this camp, but he, the prisoner, could do the heavier tasks and help you in any way you wish him to."

"I don't know…" Barbara hesitated. "I'm not saying I don't trust your judgment, no, no, but when you get to my age you'll see it is not very easy to trust strangers who are stronger than you." She placed the polished lid next to the teapot.

"He is not going to hurt you, any of you. If he did the consequences would be dire, and he knows it. He's not a stupid person."

Barbara sighed in what I believed was defeat. "You seem very sure this is the right thing to do."

Smiling, I said, "I am."

"If I find it at all bothersome to work with him in the house, am I permitted to throw him out?"

"I'd prefer it if you contacted me first, but yes, you are in charge of the other maids here as well as him."

"Alright," she finally said and paused for a moment. A grandfather clock ticked away by the doorway. "Alright, I'll do as you wish. I am not sure if Mr. Potter is going to like it, not to mention your _mother_, but –"

"Just see if it works out," I interrupted and gave Barbara a sharp look, growing slightly frustrated. She looked away and down at her hands.

"Yes, sir."

"I'm sorry, Barbara. I didn't mean to snap at you."

"It's quite alright." She gave me a grandmotherly smile and asked me something I felt like I had been asked quite often over the past few months, "Why are you doing this?"

"Love," was my immediate answer and it startled me. The word felt like it was from another language.

It's strange how one single word could affect me so much. My throat suddenly felt tight and dry and scratchy.

"I'm – I'm doing this out of love towards my mother," I finally managed to say. "She needs your extra attention now and if I need to bring a filthy, disgusting Jew in this house in order to make sure my mother gets well, I'll do exactly that."

-

That night I had an unusual dream.

_I was standing by a river. It must have been at night as I could barely see ahead of me and there was no wind to disturb the immobility around me. Even though I could see no moon in the sky the water in the river glimmered under the light of something that I could not see._

_Tall bulrushes were growing by the banks and the dark, deep water was soundlessly carrying dead leaves down the stream. I suppose had it not been a dream I would have heard the sounds of water or smelt the moist earth and the hays of a nearby meadow. A young willow tree was half drowning in the river water, its thin and numerous branches reaching for the sky while the roots were underwater, deeply sunk into the soft ground._

_On the other side of the stream there was a rock. Not a particularly big one but it still caught my eye. I looked at it for what felt like a small eternity. It was grey, rough and very much like all the other rocks in the world but I still couldn't take my eyes off it. So I just stared, waiting for something to happen._

_Suddenly there were tiny golden flakes of stars raining down on me. No, they weren't pieces of stars - they were fireflies, thousands of them! They looked nearly weightless and glowed like tiny suns but never touched and burned my skin. They were everywhere around me, dancing on the water and between the bulrushes and between the branches of the willow. There was magic in the air, I could almost taste its electricity on my tongue._

_I heard a faint splash and the water rippled as something had been thrown into it. I looked up and saw a man clad in white sitting on the grey rock. I instantly knew who it was._

"_Draco?"_

"_Hey," Draco grinned at me and threw another small stone in the water. "Fancy meeting you here."_

"_What are you doing here?" I asked._

"_What are_ you_ doing here?"_

"_I don't know," I answered back and felt mildly stupid until I realised I was asleep and dreaming. "This isn't real."_

"_No?" Draco asked, sounding amused. "Many things aren't, you know. But you can't deny that this isn't exactly a nightmare, can you?"_

"_No, it's beautiful out here. Where are we? What is this place? I mean, I know it's not actually anywhere but –"_

"_Why don't you come to this side of the river and we'll talk?" He suggested and pointed at something in the distance. "There's a bridge a bit further up the stream."_

_I squinted and indeed, there was a small, wooden bridge not very far away. _

"_That wasn't there before."_

"_Yes, it was," Draco said tiredly, as if talking to an exceptionally slow child. "Now, come on, come over here before the fireflies go away and the lights go out. You won't be able to see the bridge anymore when it gets dark again." Draco shifted on the rock slightly and wrapped his arms around himself._

"_The bridge doesn't look very safe, the railing's broken and –"_

"_Come on, Harry! I don't feel like waiting here the whole night."_

"_Are you –"_

_Then the fireflies, the bridge and Draco disappeared and I was surrounded by darkness once again. Not even the water reflected any light anymore but looked cold, bottomless and void of life. All of a sudden I just felt very lonely._

-

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_A/N: I don't know when I'm going to update again, most likely before Christmas if everything goes well. We'll see. I hope you enjoyed or 'enjoyed' reading this chapter as much as I liked writing it._

**-Devilita.**


	10. Sheep and Wolves

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_Chapter nine: Sheep and Wolves_

_-_

_; 7th of August, 1944, Buchenwald_

It was a cool Monday morning and after the usual morning roll call I sent a few guards to fetch Draco for me. I would have done it myself but I had paper work to do before I could allow him to come in. I sat by the window, typing away on the typing machine as I heard voices coming from outside. One of them unmistakably belonged to Draco.

"No! No, please don't! I'm begging you, let go of me!"

"Shut your face! I _said_ we're taking you to Mr. and Mrs. Potter's residence. Quit whining and follow me or else you'll leave me no other choice but to punish you for your disobedience!"

"You're lying! I wasn't born yesterday, why on _earth_ would the Potters want me there?"

They entered my line of vision as they rounded the corner and walked closer and closer to the main door. The taller of the guards took hold of Draco from the back of his neck.

"Did you not hear me? If you don't shut your trap I will shoot you here and now, you got it?"

I got up, as I did not have any faith in the blond man's abilities to keep quiet. I was proven right in my assumptions in only a few seconds.

"Ouch! Something snapped in my neck, let me go!"

"That's it, you asked for this!"

I went to open the door, not even waiting for them to knock on it. "You're here, good," I said. Tom's hand stopped in mid-air, obviously about to hit Draco. "Thank you, I'll take this from here." The two men nodded and left, talking to each other as they walked away.

I took hold of Draco's stained sleeve and pulled him inside the house. "I can't let you just stand there in front of the house forever for all people to ogle at. Do you know why you're here?"

Eyes quite wide, Draco stammered, "I - Yes, I think so, but... I didn't believe the guards were telling me the truth. I thought they were going to take me somewhere to be killed."

"You're to help Barbara with whatever she needs help with. You will not disobey her or hurt anyone in this house or I'll be sure to wring your skinny neck myself. Do you understand me?"

The other man averted his eyes to the ground. "Yes, Mr. Potter."

"You are up at 4 in the morning every day to ask Barbara for instructions. She'll be here in a minute to tell you what to do today," I explained. "You are in a privileged position, Draco. Don't abuse it. I don't wish to see you getting carted away on top of a pile of corpses, but it's your call."

"Thank you, sir," he said, sounding sincere but looking very confused. "I will not disappoint you."

-

_; August 21st, 1944, Buchenwald_

Strangely enough I was both pleased with my situation and growing worried over it at the same time. All was well in Buchenwald; we got food deliveries regularly again, the trains arrived and departed mostly on time and the summer nights weren't unbearably hot. The war was escalating fast, however; Avranches, Dragoon, the Soviet attack on Romania, the uprisings in Paris and the Allied forces' siege in Falaise Pocket... I didn't like the way things were going at all. Naturally, not all of the setbacks were broadcasted on the radio, as such information never affected the nation's morale in a productive way.e

My father had been back very shortly but had to leave for Hamburg the very next day. I had no idea what it was that he was actually going to do there, and to be honest, I wasn't really interested. The letters he had sent us while he was away had been polite, though awfully short and hurriedly written. The night he came back I spoke with him briefly but stayed on safe and insignificant topics: what the weather had been like down here in Buchenwald, how my father had found Berlin and the food there, where he had bought that lovely necklace he had given my mother and so forth. Then I'd made the mistake of asking who he had met and my father had looked at me in the eye in a way that told me it was time to stop asking any more questions. Barbara asked us if we wanted some more tea or coffee.

My mother was recovering slowly but surely under Barbara's care. I did not have a lot of spare time outside my duties so I could not go to the main building and see her as often as I would have wanted to. According to the maids, my mother had started moving around the house again, occasionally going to sit outside to observe the life in the camp from afar. Every now and then I got to see Draco working outside the house, chopping or carrying firewood and fixing the spouts or the steps of the wooden veranda.

One day, on a particularly hot day, I saw him in the back garden of the house as I was bringing some files over for my father to look at the next time he came back again. Draco was there, chopping wood by the wood shed, and his naked back was glistering with perspiration under the hot sun. He had not noticed me yet, and was wiping sweat off his brow with the back of his hand.

He was pleasant to look at. Sure, he was filthy and definitely malnourished, despite my attempts to slip him some extra food after the people at the main building had dined, but he was a fine specimen of a man. His muscles, not as defined as a professional athlete's, of course, were visible but natural. His profile was like that of a Roman sculpture's, I thought, though his nose and chin where slightly too pointy. Somehow I found that those sharp angles made him even more fascinating to look at. Narrow hips, strong and lean legs, reasonably masculine shoulders and a flat, hairless chest... Or maybe he did have chest hair, but I just couldn't see it then as it was probably blond. All of his bodily hair was probably blond.

This was where I woke up from my day dreams and shook my head clear of those thoughts.

"How's it going there?" I yelled, and the other man turned to look at me, setting his axe aside and regarding me with an appropriate, humble stance.

"Sir, I am done with fourteen cartfuls of firewood. I still have about six more to go."

I walked closer to him, keeping my eye on the axe by his right leg. "You're doing well. Keep it up."

"Yes, sir."

Up close I could actually see the individual beads of sweat on his abs. That stomach was like a magnet, making my fingers itch as they wanted to reach out and touch that skin. I felt disgusted with myself once again. He must have caught me looking and gave me that familiar smirk I'd certainly seen before, in that spinney during that fateful night not long ago.

I lifted my eyes to look at him in the face. He had a smudge of dirt on his cheekbone. "I'd better be off now."

-

In the house Barbara was teaching one of the maids how to embroider handkerchiefs. "Good afternoon, Barbara."

"Hello, Harry," she smiled up at me as I closed the door behind me. She said to the maid, "I'll be back in a minute."

Barbara and I walked to the kitchen where she offered me some freshly-made lemonade. I asked for another glassful that I left untouched on the table. I noticed that the elderly woman looked somewhat uncomfortable. "Is everything alright?"

"Well, yes, but... It's about that inmate working here..."

"He hasn't behaved out of order, has he? He's been here for two weeks and so far he has -"

"No, no, he's done excellent work; it was right of you to bring him over. He has been nothing but very co-operative and polite."

I was puzzled. "Then what's the matter?"

"I'm running out of tasks to give him, Harry," she admitted. "The wood shed is full of firewood already; it'll easily last over the winter and well into the spring. The house is in fine condition now that he has fixed the tiles on the roof, the spouts, and the veranda. For a few days now, I've found it difficult to think of anything to tell him to do. I don't think we need him here right now."

Something constricted in my throat. Over the past two weeks I had felt at ease, knowing that Draco was not working with the other inmates under the surveillance of the other guards. I knew he was away from all of that, somewhere where _I_ had put him and where Barbara and I were his superiors. I had told Barbara to share the remains of the meals with Draco as well and not only with the other maids.

"Barbara," I began. "You have my utmost trust and I want you to not question what I'm about to say."

Barbara nodded.

"He is going to stay here. I don't care if the tasks you give him are the kind that you or the Helen or anyone else could do. Make him useful around here, even if it means that you get a fair few more hours off each day."

The blond man had started to get some healthy colour back on his cheeks, and when he was working he did not look like he was about to faint from over-exertion. He was getting decent food every now and then, and got to sleep with the other maids in an additional house like the ones down in other parts of the camp, only safer.

_'Why are you protecting an inmate? And is it really 'safer' here, what with you and your pervy eyes?'_

I refused to contemplate on those matters any further.

-

_; 27th of August, 1944, Buchenwald_

Paris had been lost. General Chollitz suddenly gained a very unflattering reputation amongst both the public and the leaders.

Such an important turn in the war broke the silence in our dorm and the whole SS seemed to have only one thing in mind: what was going to happen next? They had walked German soldiers down the streets of the city, hands raised behind their heads, and crowds had gathered at _avenue des Champs-Élysées_. As if that wasn't enough, Romania had also declared war on Germany, there had been some hassle by the Metauro River in Italy that I didn't know much about, and in the Eastern Front the Soviets had captured Tartu of Estonia.

That day the lives of many prisoners of war came to an end as the number of executions was suddenly raised and we, the guards, became more generous than ever in giving out punishments. Series of gunshots echoed across the meadows from the nearby woods, scaring flocks of birds out of the tall grass, bushes and the trees, and the long lines of prisoners who had slowly been led into the depths of the forest by the SS never came back.

Ron and I were sitting in the cafeteria of the camp, having lunch when Blaise and Jerry flopped down to sit in our table.

"Hey, how's it going?" Blaise asked, not sounding quite as carefree as he usually did when asking that question. He seemed tense, as many men in the camp did those days.

"Not bad," I replied as Ron continued devouring his soup. "It's just been a very exhausting morning. I need to go get more bullets before my shift starts again. How about you?"

Blaise took a piece of bread and dipped it into his soup. "Same. Some French inmates were trying to create a bit of trouble in the woods a bit earlier but they didn't make it very far. We chased down the escapees and their break-out was cut pretty short; but damn, they were fast! I never thought that anyone in that condition would be able to run half as hard as they did."

"Wild animals are unpredictable, especially if they are cornered or hurt. They can draw some sort of primitive strength out of their own misery, it seems," Jerry said, buttering up a piece of white bread. "That's why you have to be ready for anything, always. In spite of their simple minds they can sometimes take you by surprise and then you're done for. The Jews need to be eliminated; they can't be trusted."

'_He's right,_' I thought to myself. _'The Jews can't be trusted, ever. They're not like us. We must protect our own kind and make sure the next generation won't be subjected to them.'_ I frowned. _'Then why am I putting not only myself in danger but my mother as well? Draco is a Jew, and a homosexual one at that! I am acting irrationall;, it's impossible that any good would ever come out of this.'_

What did I expect to happen in the end? Why did I bother helping Draco out even though I knew what was to come?

Draco was going to die, eventually. And there was nothing I could do – _should_ _have done_ - about it, I thought.

"Sorry, guys, I need to go now. See you later," I stood up and stomped out of the cafeteria, silently fuming but trying not to show it. I had developed a mild headache and almost forgot to fetch more bullets before my shift.

-

Later that evening I started reading a book that Blaise had lent to me. He himself wasn't a great friend of literature and I was probably the first person to even open the book. Judging by the stiffness of the covers and the crunching sounds that the folding paper made, I was right.

_The Pestilential Miasma of the World, by Dr. Robert Ley._

"_This war is a battle between worldviews, and the side that has the strongest faith will be victorious.__ Only he who is convinced of the justice of his cause, and who in fact has justice on his side, who acts reasonably and correctly, who recognizes and follows the laws of nature, can have the strongest faith. ---"_

Faith. I knew it was a key term in the equation of making the world a better place. We all had strong faith in the cause, in our leader, and we knew that historical and scientific facts supported us. Our worldview, our faith, was justified.

"_--- Everything in nature obeys ancient and unchangeable laws. Nothing happens apart from these natural laws. The laws strive toward harmony and construction. Every natural creature must obey some of these countless laws. It has a mission, thereby obeying its drives, its instincts, and its understanding, if nature has given it that. The opposite of harmony is chaos and disharmony. If racial community displays harmony in blood and nature, the Jew is the chaotic, disharmonic factor in such human harmony. National Socialism wants to release energy by promoting communities of race and blood so that humanity can develop its abilities and virtues to the highest level. National Socialism thus strives for the highest level of culture. ---"_

My life used to be so harmonious. I didn't doubt myself and I wasn't weak enough to feel anything other than hatred towards Jews. Life was easy and my path in life seemed smooth and straight, containing no unsettling bumps or surprising turns.

Then a blond man came into the picture and the harmony started to crack slowly until it shattered completely, like all those windows in Berlin years and years ago. One man had made me do things I never imagined I'd do, and he didn't even need to ask for help. I offered it anyways.

I continued reading further.

"_--- The Jew developed like any other parasite. Parasites develop through unnatural inbreeding and by the inheritance of the worst traits. Parasites develop under some sort of natural pressure, through unnatural, perverse inheritance, through forced atrophy — in other words, as the result of disease, bad environment, and inheritance."_

The Jews were parasites, I knew that already. They were the enemies amongst us, as Herr Hitler once said. They were consuming our nation from within and making it rot away, piece by piece.

Nevertheless, I found it confusing how such beauty, Draco's beauty, could possibly be that of a parasite's. If he was like a disease, inbred and corrupt, how could I have felt such intense desire to touch him? To protect him, to make sure no one did those things to him that I did to others of his own kind on a daily basis. Shouldn't I have been disgusted at him, seeing as I was aware of all the characteristics and the general nature of the Jewry? Deep down I knew I was a hypocrite and overlooking the possibility that Draco might have somehow managed to get past all my defences. Jewish men and women were known to have lured respectful Aryan citizens into their traps, polluting pure German blood with their genes. Such was unacceptable.

But was I really doing anything that endangered the Aryan heritage? Draco was a queer and therefore wasn't likely to ever procreate. Whatever he did, his blood was never going to mix with our blood. He was of no use to the Jews and no threat to us in that sense. Homosexuals were useless, their acts were immoral and they were generally thought of as a good riddance, but surely saving just _one_ wouldn't hurt.

I set down the book on my bed and put my head in my hands. Bewitched or not, I had a problem that I couldn't solve on my own.

In my teenage years there had been signs of my deviation. I had, in fact, enjoyed kissing Emerson, and Draco was more than a common inmate to me. I didn't know what he was, but he was something that shook my very foundations. _Fight the weakness_, my mind told me, but it was becoming harder and harder to resist, deny, and ignore the way I felt about other men and one man in particular.

There was no way around it; I felt attracted toward Draco. I didn't consciously decide to make it so, it just happened. I'd heard that it was possible to get rid of these perverted urges, however, that one could learn how to live appropriately again. Only I didn't know how to go about doing that.

It was agonising, knowing how I felt. Nevertheless there was nothing I could do about it because someone else, an outsider, had told me it was wrong and forbidden to have such relations with another man, a Jewish one at that. I didn't know how to beat these aforementioned feelings.

I went to find Draco.

-

I found him asleep in the servants' building, lying there on the wooden planks of his bunk and looking absolutely exhausted. He had tucked a bunch of dark cloth under his cheek, pretending it was a pillow. His lips were partly open, his breathing was deep, and every now and then his brow twitched. Draco's arm was hanging outside the bunk, almost touching the floor and his fingers were slightly curled, like a sleeping person's fingers tended to be. I noted that those hands looked like they had done a lot of heavy, physical work recently, and one of his fingernails was clearly going to fall off sometime soon; he must have dropped something heavy on top of it.

I just watched him sleep. I wondered where his unconscious mind travelled, where his temporary refuge was and who he was with. Quite possibly those were the best moments of Draco's day. He got to go somewhere else, forget about Buchenwald and everything having to do with the camp. Including me.

I decided to wake him up and shook his arm.

Draco's eyes snapped open and he scrambled to sit up. "Wha-What? I'm late for work, aren't I? Forgive me, sir -"

"Shhh," I shushed. "It's not morning yet; keep quiet. There's no need to wake up the others."

"Sir –"

"For God's sake, don't wear that word out! It's starting to annoy me."

"Yes, si- Mr. Potter." He paused. "What are you doing here?"

"How do I make it stop?" I blurted out. The question had been bothering me for so long that it slipped easily off the tip of my tongue.

Draco stared at me back, confused. "What do you mean? Make what stop?"

I gritted my teeth. I'd wished I wouldn't need to go into details. "This…abnormality. How is it cured?"

"I'm not quite sure I completely understand what –"

I kicked the leg of the bunk in anger, and in case the others woke up I pulled the stumbling Draco outside, shutting the door behind us. The whole conversation was making me very uncomfortable and I just wanted it to be over as soon as possible.

"I have a problem. One that is very similar to yours. It has to do with what transpired between us, in the spinney. Ring any bells yet?"

The other man pursed his lips. It looked like he was trying to hold his breath as his eyes stated watering a bit and his cheeks got a faint pink tint. I would have interpreted this reaction as horror or embarrassment had Draco not burst out laughing a few seconds later.

I flushed red both in humiliation and anger. "What exactly do you find so funny?"

He continued snickering. "This!" He exclaimed, "This is so absurd, so paradoxical! You – an SS man – asking an inmate how to deal with being gay! Oh, God, this is so preposterous I don't know whether I should laugh or cry!

"Look around you. Where are we? It's August, 1944, in Germany and currently we happen to be in the concentration camp of Buchenwald, which is located close to the hill of Ettersberg. So, how are problematic and different people dealt with, keeping in mind where we are?" He asked incredulously.

"It would seem that you have to join our ranks. The Nazis surely know what to do with us, how to solve the problem! What do you say? Shouldn't you give up your position as a _highly-regarded_ Shutzstaffel officer and instead join the wrong-minded scum?"

"Shut up!" I spat, slamming Draco against the wall with such force that it knocked the breath out of him, leaving him gasping for air. "You did this, didn't you? It's all your fault!"

"Oh, tell me something new, please. I've heard this all bef-"

I kicked him in the shin and he fell to the ground, mewling in pain. "TELL ME! TELL ME HOW TO GET RID OF IT!"

Clutching his leg, Draco looked up at me from the ground with narrowed eyes. "I don't know! I doubt you even CAN get rid of it! It's just something that is part of you, whether you like it or not!"

This made me freeze. I hadn't expected to get a confirmation of my fears.

Shouldn't he have just told me that it's a matter of choice, or that these thoughts were contagious but curable? "Are you…sure of this?" I stammered out, not quite believing what I was hearing.

There was a moment of silence. Then Draco spoke up. "Quite sure."

There was another pause. Once again Draco and I were out alone quite late; it was close to midnight. I looked around me in the darkness and the surroundings suddenly seemed completely unfamiliar to me. The nocturnal colours sat on the surfaces of familiar objects like suffocating blankets.

He broke the silence finally by asking me, "Why would you think it's my fault that you're this way?"

I turned to look at him again, noting how the moon's light hit his eyes and made them glimmer. "You were the one who got it all started."

I seemed to have captured his complete attention and went on. "Ever since I first saw you entering the gates I haven't been able to stop thinking about you. Every day you've entered my thoughts in one way or another. It feels like there's poison burning through my system. I want it to stop."

Draco was speechless. He just sat on the ground, looking up at me and still holding his shin,. He was not saying a word. Two lone figures, him and me, merely looked at each other in the silence of the late hour, and I wondered what would become of all of this.

"Say something," I finally pleaded, feeling like we were not in Buchenwald at all but somewhere else completely; somewhere where rules didn't exist and it was right for me to say anything I liked.

"I don't know what I should say."

"Don't think about what you should say, just tell me what you're thinking."

"I'm not sure if I want to," he muttered quietly.

I dug something out of my pocket. "A penny for your thoughts." And I tossed a food token on the ground in front of him and it made a soft clinking sound.

Draco briefly locked his eyes to the coin but then lifted his eyes to look back up at me. "I think," he began, his tone of voice almost analytical, "I think you have a lot of self-searching to do. Inherently, you are not a bad man, but a victim of the circumstances, just like me." Earlier I'd fervently denied any similarities between a Jew and myself, but at that moment I wanted to agree with the other man on some level. We were both shackled to the standards of society, and we both wanted to find peace and be free.

"I have _tried_ to find out what is going on with me, but it's getting me nowhere! I'm _stuck_, Draco! I'm stuck in between _everything_!"

He stood up. "Mr. Potter –"

"Harry," I said. Draco looked unsure. "If I call you by your given name, you call me Harry."

"Harry," Draco said as if testing what the name sounded like on his lips. "I'm not an expert in these things. I am – or at least I was – a medical school student and I have no knowledge of how human psychology really works. But I do know that eventually you will have to take a chance, and regardless of what anyone else says, you must do as that inner pull tells you to do, or else you might end up becoming a very bitter, sad man who dies of old age with strangers around him."

"Inner pull," I repeated, thinking things over.

"Yes."

"And I have to follow it?"

"Exactly."

"But I don't know if the pull leads me in the right direction."

"Just do it anyway."

So I stepped up to Draco, cupped his face in my hands and kissed him for the second time in my life. I then felt hands gripping my hipbones and I pushed my body against the other man who had started kissing me back equally enthusiastically. I slid my fingers through Draco's short hair, wishing it hadn't been cut quite so short, although at that moment I didn't really care. What I cared about was the feeling of having him in my arms, kissing him and him kissing me back!

'_Lord help me,'_ I thought, but soon all logic abandoned me and left me with only my desires.

Tongue on tongue, chest against chest and breaths mixing together in the warm summer night we sunk into one another. I felt like I was falling forward and deeper into the moment and had the sensation of being right where I wanted to be; being with someone who wasn't just anyone but someone who made me feel so complete, more complete than anyone had ever made me before.

Eventually we separated, our lips making a soft wet sound, and I buried my face in Draco's shoulder. I wrapped my arms around his waist and just held him, not wanting to let go anytime soon. "The pull told me to kiss you."

"I'm glad it did."

I enjoyed the feeling of his bare skin against my cheek. "But don't you hate me?"

"Yes."

"Still you let me do it."

"True."

"Why?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"My pull told me the same thing."

"So you are not only doing this because you're afraid I'd kill you otherwise?"

"Not really. There are times when thinking is not necessary."

I pressed my lips against his again, overwhelmed by the fact that he let me do so. Draco draped his arms over my shoulders, taking hold of the back of my head as he returned the warm embrace that I could only hope wouldn't be our last.

What I didn't know at the time was that there was a pair of eyes observing us from the darkness, not at all happy with what they were seeing.

* * *

TBC

A/N: Thank you, lotrwariorgodss, for betaing this chapter. You did a wonderful job :)

Ahem... I also apologise for the delay in updating this story. Yes, I was supposed to do it before Christmas but the goblins kidnapped my laptop and took it to their headquarters in Siberia. I had to wrestle with tigers and cave bears to get it back but finally I made it.

Reviewing is strongly encouraged.


	11. Plan

_A/N: -author materialisation- You'd never believe what prevented me from updating any sooner. No, this time the goblins had nothing to do with it but I'll give you a few hints: polar bears, raft and memory stick. Damn the sea currents! _

_I am really, truly sorry for the delay! Some of the 'whenwhenwhen?' comments made my heart bleed in sympathy with you; I quite dislike cliffies too._

* * *

_-_

_Chapter ten: Plan_

_-_

_; 31st of August, 1944, __Buchenwald_

The night had been cold. The inevitable arrival of autumn was not very far away at all and while there still were excruciatingly hot days, the nights were getting cooler and cooler. Soon enough the same would happen during daylight and the radiators would have to be turned on in our SS barracks. _'Perhaps they should have been turned on already,'_ I remember thinking as I had woken up hat morning with a stuffy nose and clammy skin. It was only 5 am as Blaise, Ritter and I made our way towards the cafeteria for some breakfast, when I noticed how quickly time had gone by. I had first arrived in Buchenwald in January and it was already the end of August.

-

_; 5th of September, 1944, __Buchenwald_

Father was back. He had thrown Draco out of the house, and judging by the pale purple bruise on Barbara's cheek, he had not been happy to hear there had been a homosexual Jewish prisoner working in the house. I felt rotten, of course; I had been the one to request that Draco helped her, after all.

While I knew it was my fault that Barbara had been hurt, her well-being was not what I was particularly concerned about.

-

_'Father, it was my idea that Barbara should get some more help. The girls had their hands full and a woman her age couldn't have done everything on her own,__'__ I explained to my father as we both sat in the sitting room. He stood up from his armchair and poured himself a bit of whisk__e__y in a glass, then placed the ornate bottle back on the table with a rather loud bang. I __could tell he was still angry._

_'You could have requested another guard's help. It was entirely unnecessary and outright irresponsible to risk your mother's safety like that.'_

_'You know __what__ tight schedules and specific job descriptions we guards have,' I said, stretching the truth quite a bit but trusting my father to not know what the past few weeks had been like in the camp. 'Barbara did keep an eye on him all the time, checked on him every five or ten minutes. I would have been glad to help but there was no time; on top of my normal duties_ _D__octor Vaernet required my assistance. Also, I've had the opportunity to… observe this particular prisoner. I knew he did not pose a great threat. And the other guards are just as busy as I have been_ _, - this__ was the only option.'_

_My father's fierce gaze met mine. 'You have no idea what a prisoner's true nature is like, Harry. You do not know how their twisted minds works, and trusting them is the most idiotic thing you could possibly do. They are not like us_ _they belong to a whole different species! Never, _ever_, trust a pest.' He sat down again. 'But yes, herr Vaernet. How is his work coming along?'_

_'I don't know. I only helped him to settle down and prepare for his experiments. I haven't had the chance to ask him about the nature of the actual experiments or their results.'_

-

_; 6th of September, 1944, __Buchenwald_

During the morning roll call I kept a close eye on the group of prisoners to which Draco belonged. Unfortunately, I had been appointed as a supervisor of a group of Hungarian prisoners of war, and it was impossible to swap positions with another guard without a very tangible reason. I thought I saw Draco's head among the crowd briefly, but then it was gone and I ushered the Hungarians off to work.

The day crept by very slowly. I kept wondering what Draco was made to do, and somehow it seemed oddly unreasonable that he should be in that position in the first place. It was fine by me that the Hungarians, the Soviets, and the rest were getting what they deserved, but Draco was different. He may have been a Jew and he may have been a homosexual, but he was _not_ an ordinary prisoner. He was supposed to be in _my_ protection and above the scum he had to sleep next to in his Block. It wasn't rare that a noticeable portion of the prisoners found dead in the morning were pink triangle prisoners; they were the lowest of the low, even in the inmates' hierarchy. My instinct told me to check his Block's prisoner list every morning but that would have been so suspicious that I had to push the idea from my mind. The _not knowing_ was driving me absolutely crazy.

By the time work ended for the day I felt knackered. Workers were counted, both the living and the dead. I checked through my own list quickly and crossed the sandy expanse where the prisoners were gathered in neat rows in front of their supervisors.

"Michael!" I shouted as the dark-blond man finished going through his list of inmates. Earlier in the morning I had noticed that he was in charge of Block 16.

"Hey, Harry. What's up?" He said good-naturedly and put his pen in his chest pocket.

"Nothing much; it's been quite a tiring day today, hasn't it? How is your daughter? Isn't she around six months old now?"

Michael smiled, not looking tired at all. "Seven months tomorrow. Violet keeps sending me pictures of her and she seems to be growing up fast. My wife's introduced her to food other than milk now as well."

"Wonderful," I said, not really giving a damn about the baby's latest culinary developments. Trying to sound nonchalant, I asked, "Listen, may I have a look at your list of inmates?"

I knew it came out sounding a bit strange. Michael lifted his eye brow in question. I was too tired, too worried, and too fucking apathetic to care anymore.

"I'd just like to check something quickly, please." I hoped the other man wouldn't press the subject. I couldn't come up with any plausible excuses and only wanted to see Draco's name on the list, not below the heading 'ceased'.

"Alright," he said and passed me the clipboard. I avoided his gaze.

My eyes scanned through the list of names and finally spotted Draco's name at the bottom of the list of the living. Relieved, I handed Michael back his clip board. "Thank you."

-

_; 11th of September, 1944, __Buchenwald_

I had been over a year since I had heard from Blaz last time, so it caught me completely by surprise when I received a letter from him later that day.

_"Hello Harry,_

_How are you doing these days? I heard of your new post as a guard in __Buchenwald__ a few months ago and thought I'd write to you and ask what is going on in your life. _

_I know it's been a long time since our last correspondence, but I have been rather busy __dealing __with my grandmother's properties._ _Sh__e died two months ago and_ _as you might remember, my __father __moved to __Chile__ five years ago and I haven't heard from him since. This means, of course, that I have to take care of everything around here and keep an eye on mum and Belle. You have no idea how lucky you are, Harry… Little sisters can be quite a nuisance, especially if they insist on running off with their good-for-nothing boyfriend__s__. If only she had been born a boy. _

_The strangest thing happened to me a few days ago, only a little before the issue with __Belgium__ hit the news. I saw Louis (surely you must remember him; the piss-ugly bully from our old school) and it would seem like he's climbed up the social ladder quite dramatically. He's the junior head of security of __Hamburg__'s unit, would you believe it! Him, who didn't have the brains to come up with a working plan back in his schooldays, ever! Louis probably still makes everybody else do his work for him. I was travelling through __Hamburg__ and had some business with Louis's superior, so seeing Louis there was quite a surprise._

_If you ever have business here in __Dortmund__, please_ _let me know and we'll meet up. We've got __quite a bit_ _of catching up to do._

_Take care, Harry_

_Blaz__."_

Blaz was probably the best friend I ever had. We were inseparable during our school years, but once everybody else started getting interested in girls and dating them, there was less time left for friends. Sure, we hung out as often as our girlfriends would allow us, but things weren't the same anymore. I felt angry when I saw Blaz walking hand in hand with whichever girl he was infatuated with at the time, and unreasonable jealousy used to bubble inside of me late into the night as I lay in my bed, glaring at the framed photo that stood on my night stand. The picture was of him and I holding a gigantic salmon we'd caught in Norway on a holiday trip, and I used to wonder if that day had been as unforgettable to him as it had been to me.

I sighed tiredly and slid the letter back into its envelope. Blaz and I had experienced so much together. He'd been the first person in my school to approach me and befriend me, and he had taken me on a tourist tour in Berlin, showed me around the town and told how things worked there. We'd been to Norway and France together with Blaz's parents (my mother and father didn't have the time to join us), and we used to cycle around the factory area close to his neighbourhood when there was nothing else to do. It was quite an adventure because there was a vicious Schaeffer dog guarding the factory, and whenever it caught us trespassing we had to literally flee for our lives.

Those were fond memories. Blaz and I had many of that kind, but quite a few daunting incidents stained the perfection of my childhood… In 1938, on that fateful night I had killed for the first time in defence of Blaz. I can still remember those unfocused, unseeing dark eyes of the Jewish boy who couldn't have been much older than I was at the time.

Well. He was Jewish. He would have ended up dying anyway.

-

_; 13th of September, 1944, __Buchenwald_

I was leafing though our camp's official list of prisoners, updating it by marking the ceased and those who had been transferred elsewhere. It was a tedious task, but someone had to do it. To be honest, I didn't mind it all that much since it was pouring again; Jerry and Blaise had voiced their envy because they had a shift outdoors that evening.

Fat water droplets were bombarding the roof and the window in front of the desk I was working on. Water ran down the glass surface in rivulets that spilled onto the sill, the criss-cross pattern shifting constantly. I poured some more tea into the cup next to the pile of finished prisoner lists, and added a small spoonful of sugar into the mix. My mother preferred her tea with milk and no sugar, and my father only drank coffee, black.

As I sat there, listening to the patter of the rain I once again wondered where Draco was. I knew it was an obsessive thing to do, and immediately I chastised myself for being such a _girl_, but I couldn't expel the man from my thoughts. He might have been outside, working on water trenches or something else, cold and close to catching pneumonia. If only he wasn't a prisoner… If only I'd met him _outside_, elsewhere, not now. I knew his days were going to be brought to an end soon; he had survived far too long for a homosexual.

"Nuwyr, Raoul… Makzovsky, Alexei… Makzovsky, Elsi… Mafkov, Ivan…"

Then I saw his name on the list along with his prisoner number, 1496302.

_"Who are you?"_

_"1496302. I'm 1496302."_

Suddenly an idea struck me, and my heart skipped a beat in shock. Adrenaline rushed in my body and the tips of my fingers tingled a little bit as I struggled clumsily to find another pile of papers. I pushed folders and documents aside, not even noticing how some fell to the floor, and then, I found it.

Flipping through the pages quickly, I browsed through the numerically arranged list of prisoners. There it was, '1496302'. Before that were '1496301' and '1496300', as logic would have it. The prisoner who'd got their number right before Draco was called 'Claus Almen', and I checked his name on the list I was updating. 'Ceased', it read right next to his name. Also 1496300 was the number of a dead inmate, as well as 1496299 and 1496298. 1496303 was a woman, Polish, judging by the name, and she was registered as a prisoner of war.

"What if –" I muttered to myself, moving forwards on the list until I reached '1496802'. Mathias Zorn, a criminal. I turned to the list of the living and the dead. The name wasn't paired up with 'ceased'.

"Perfect."

-

_; 14th of September, 1944, __Buchenwald_

The man was kneeling on the ground, blood trickling down the side of his face and into his left eye, probably painting his vision red.

"Please… No…"

"I'm sorry." And I was. I truly was, for the first time since the brown-eyed Jewish boy. "I have no other alternative."

He looked up from the ground, trembling all over. His wide eyes shone brightly in the moon's light. They were too bright; they were a coward's eyes, and I swallowed the lump that had risen in my throat. This man was a criminal. He had murdered his wife and an 8-year-old German girl in their own beds. Before Buchenwald he had served 4 years in a prison. He deserved to die, I told myself.

"You're a murderer," I said to him. "You strangled your wife and your own daughter to death, did you not?"

"She wasn't even mine! My wife lied to me all those years, and the girl wasn't even my flesh and blood! I have paid for my crime ten-fold!" To me it sounded like a confession. A reason.

"Take off your shirt," I ordered him.

"What?"

"Did you not hear me? Take it off!"

He struggled to free himself of the shirt as quickly as possible, not breaking our eye contact for a second.

"Leave it there on the ground." He wrapped arms around his chest, trying to cover himself. "Stand up and face that wall."

Taking a step back, he screamed, "No! Please, don't kill me, I'm not –"

"Shut up! Face the wall."

"No…"

"I promise to make it quick. If you do not obey me, I can assure you that later on you will wish you had listened to me."

Sobbing, he took a step towards the brick wall of the crematorium. "Oh, Lord, help me!" He spoke to the skies, and I shoved him in the back.

"Shut it." The safety catch on my gun made a clicking sound. My hand was trembling as I took aim. The moment felt rather surreal, like I wasn't there, and this was happening elsewhere. "You are not dying in vain, I can tell you. Do you have any final wishes?"

"I- I suppose letting me go is not an option?"

The question could have been amusing but for some reason it wasn't. "No, not really."

He laid his forehead against the wall and I imagined he squeezed his eyes shut. "Tell me, why are you doing this?"

I took a deep breath. I thought the man should, too, seeing as his remaining breaths could be counted with two hands' fingers. _'Ten breaths,'_ I thought to myself. _'I'll allow his ten more breaths and then…'_ "To save another life." I watched the rise and fall of the shoulders, the expansion of his rib cage at every rushed inhale.

"Our Father in Heaven -"

_'Nine.' _

"- hallowed be your name."

_'Eight.' _

"Your kingdom come."

_'Seven.' _

"Your will be done –"

_'Six.' _

"- on earth as in Heaven."

_'Five.' _

"Give us today our daily bread."

_'Four.' _

"Forgive us our sins–"

_'Three.' _

"- as we forgive those who sin against us."

_'Two.'_

"Save us from the time of trial –"

_'One.'_

"- and deliver us from evil." (1)

I pulled the trigger. My heart gave a jolt in my chest. In fright or relief? I didn't know.

TBC

* * *

A/N: Don't worry if you don't see Harry's plan yet; my beta didn't either, so if everything's a bit hazy you'll just have to wait til the next chapter! I've actually written quite a bit of it already :) 

Alright, folks, 'review' is the key word here! I was VERY happy with the feedback I got from you last time so please let me know what you think of the story so far.

(1) Don't maim me if you think the prayer was written 'wrong' because A) There are so many versions of it and this is what Google offered me B) I only know it in my own first language (not English). Also, even though my religious beliefs bear 0 significanse, I do not believe in god(s) of any kind. I'm not trying to brainwash anyone here, or gross people our with gore.

-D


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